


Yeah, You Turn Me On

by grocketinmypocket



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Accidental Relationship, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Awkward First Times, Dubious Consent, First Time, Frottage, Human Rocket Raccoon, Human!Rocket, I Can't Write Fluff Without The Blackest Angst Mixed In Apparently, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Masturbation, Peter Is Determined To Hit That, Podfic Available, Rocket Is A Blushing Virgin, Suicidal Thoughts, Virginity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-16 02:57:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2253294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grocketinmypocket/pseuds/grocketinmypocket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Peter Quill is a terrible thief and puts his hands somewhere he shouldn't, thus opening up entire new vistas of places he is pretty much ordained by the universe to put his hands. Or, the one where Peter is a dumbfuck and accidentally sort of makes Rocket human and kinda soul-marries him, unintentionally. In other words, this shit is all Peter's fault, as usual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I can't stop this feeling

**Author's Note:**

> **THIS FIC IS NOT ABANDONED, I WILL BE WRITING MORE. Just not right now. For a longer explanation of my bullshit,[click over to my tumblr](http://grocketinmypocket.tumblr.com/post/100838932557/an-explanation-for-my-bullshit).** The short version is that I'm working on several fics at once, at any given time, and when I'm out of inspiration for a particular fic, I set it aside and work on something else. This fic is particularly difficult to write, if I want to keep the tone and characterization on track, and it's taking me a while to get it right. Please be patient, and you will be rewarded with smut, I promise.
> 
> I have recorded a podfic of Chapter 1! [You can find it and future chapters of the podfic version here, available for streaming and download as an mp3 via Google Drive.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2284020/chapters/5020302)
> 
> Welcome to another edition of "I have a problem, and that problem is that I can't fucking stop writing about Peter Quill and Rocket Raccoon doing the sex." This is a completely new story, not a part of my currently ongoing "Press Your Space Face Close To Mine, Love" series. It's a "Rocket becomes human" fic mixed with a Soulmate AU, topped with a garnish of Accidental Marriage, and spiced with lots of absolutely filthy smut. I've been writing Rocket as a foul-mouthed, mean top in my other stories, so I thought I would take a swing at "Rocket is a blushing virgin." By the way, if you need a mental image of what human!Rocket looks like, [picture Bradley Cooper as he appeared in "Silver Linings Playbook."](http://imgur.com/wdT48ze)
> 
> I've compiled a tracklist for my own Awesome Mix Vol. 2, and it appears in the story as a plot point. [If you'd like to listen as you read, you can find it here, via Youtube.](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuGRLyisBwP_JE4ieWiovIER5q1lm4yx1)
> 
> I had expected this fic to be complete in four chapters, but lol no, that's not happening. The chapter titles have changed, due to my realization that this won't be done when I expected it would. I'm still cribbing from "Hooked On A Feeling" by Blue Swede, but starting from the beginning of the lyrics. I'm going to keep writing until the story is done, however long that takes. I have also begun alternating between Peter and Rocket's POVs -- two chapters of Peter, two of Rocket. Chapters will be posted as they are written. I love comments and will try to answer any questions any of you crazy wonderful people might have for me. Thanks for reading!
> 
> I have now written an AU of this fic, where Rocket touched the Unity of Souls stone, and Peter was transformed into a cyborg raccoon. It's pure, shameless crack with some hot raccoon-on-raccoon smut: ["All The Good Love."](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2331257)
> 
> This fic now has cover art, courtesy of the wonderful [Reena Jenkins](http://archiveofourown.org/users/reena_jenkins)!  
> 

When Peter got back to the ship, whistling cheerfully with the satisfaction of an expensive object well-stolen, he wasn't surprised to find that all hell had broken loose in his absence. That seemed to happen regularly when you crammed a bunch of _crazy people_ onto a small spaceship and allowed them to fight it out amongst their feral selves, so he was sadly unsurprised to hear screaming as he unsealed the main airlock, but it sounded like normal angry screaming and not "I am currently bleeding out from a fatal wound" screaming, so he didn't hurry or anything.

The element of surprise entered Peter's life, however, when he strolled into the galley and was confronted by a short, wiry guy, wearing Peter's clothes, spinning to face him and snarling, "What did you _do_ , Quill?"

"What? Who are you? Are you wearing my -- why is this guy wearing my clothes?" No one else seemed to be around but the weird little guy and Groot, and any answer Groot gave would be entirely predictable and profoundly unhelpful.

"I'm wearin' your clothes 'cause it was either this or go naked, idiot. And because _this is all your fault somehow_ , I just know it."

"That's my favorite shirt," Peter said.

The little guy growled, actually _growled_ like a rabid animal and bared his teeth, and lunged at Peter. Peter only managed to dance away because the guy tripped on the excess length of his pants -- which were, in fact, Peter's pants -- sparing Peter from the kind of savaging he'd only escaped by grace of Gamora rescuing him when he'd stepped on Rocket's tail by accident a week ago. Groot was sitting in the corner of the galley, as he always did when Rocket had some weapon of ultimate destruction gutted into pieces on the floor, but seemed disinclined to save Peter from whoever this weirdo wearing Peter's goddamned clothes was.

"What was it you stole this time, asshole? Huh? Whatever it was I bet you put your fuckin' hands all over it like a fuckin' two year old, didn't ya?"

"I am Groot," Groot said to the little guy, who wheeled on Groot and almost lost his balance again, as if he wasn't quite sure how his arms and legs worked in concert with his height.

"Yes he does! You've seen him! He touches everything in the food storage unit and then no one wants to eat it 'cause it has his fuckin' Terran cooties!"

 _Oh. Oh, no,_ Peter thought. "Where's Rocket?" he asked, hoping for a nice, normal answer and not the one that he was probably going to get.

The short guy raised his arms up in the air and flapped them down in disgust and impatience. "Where do ya think? I'm right here!"

"No," Peter said.

" _Yes_ ," the little guy -- Rocket? -- said viciously, and went for Peter again, this time remembering to haul up the too-long pants at the waist before he fell. Despite not seeming to know how his new body worked, his clumsiness was offset by the monstrous strength of pure, righteous fury, and Peter found himself flat on his back on the deck, looking up into Rocket's new face. He should have recognized Rocket sooner -- his voice was still exactly the same, at least -- but the dissonance of _that_ voice coming out of _that_ face and form had thrown Peter off.

 _Oh, no,_ Peter thought again. _Why is he hot?_

Rocket's hair was now close-cropped chocolate brown. His chin was pointed, with enough stubble to qualify as a beard by default, nose a little too big, looked like maybe it had been broken before. His eyes were a startling icy blue, currently burning with incandescent fury, his skin pale, and jesus christ, did he really have to have freckles across his nose, too? That was unfair. His apparent age was something close to his own, Peter thought, and he now looked like exactly the kind of guy that Rocket's voice and inexplicably Phillie-esque accent would belong to. It was hard to tell, what with the spittle-flecked screaming and Peter's head repeatedly hitting the decking, but he thought that if Rocket smiled, it would be with the same kind of panty-dropping scoundrel's grin that Peter himself possessed and had always been, in turn, into in a _really_ narcissistic way.

 _This is **terrible** ,_ Peter thought. Rocket, as he was now, was so completely Peter's type that it blew right past any hope of being a coincidence. There was "wow, he's cute" and there was "this person was made bespoke for me and me alone and if I do not have sex with them my entire life will be a barren wasteland devoid of meaning."

Rocket, god help Peter Quill, was the latter.

"What was the thing, Quill? What, _exactly_ , did the broker say it was, you fuckin' piece of shit?" Rocket was screaming at him, and Peter really, really wished he'd cool it with the slamming of Peter's head into the floor.

"A Unity of Souls stone, whatever that is! Some religious artifact thingie!"

"Were you wearin' gloves, you fuckin' brain-dead idiot?"

"No...?"

Rocket finally let loose his two-fisted hold on Peter's jacket with an infuriated snarl, letting his head slam one final time on the deck, and got off of him to stalk angrily through the common area to the stairs to the crew bunks below, tripping on Peter's pants again and hauling them up with an accusing look at the author of his misery. " _You_ did this."

"Did what?" Gamora asked curiously as Rocket stomped down the stairs and out of sight, just as she entered through the main airlock. "Who was that?"

"Where were you five minutes ago when he was bashing my skull in? That was, uh, Rocket," Peter said, sitting up and touching his scalp gingerly, finding only a little blood and no brain matter. Probably okay.

"It was _not_ ," Gamora said. She came over and probed the lump on Peter's head as if concerned that he was concussed.

Peter swatted her hands away irritably. "It's him, trust me."

"How?"

"How what?" Drax asked, and Peter sighed. Because of course everyone had to be here for this. Of course. 

"Rocket is a human now," Gamora said dubiously. "According to Quill." She poked his head one more time as if testing the firmness of fruit, apparently still not convinced that Peter was not suffering from a head injury. Peter wasn't either, frankly.

Before Peter was forced to defend himself again, this time from Drax wandering over to poke at Peter's skull as well, a howl of absolute unbridled rage trailed up to the galley from the stairwell. Peter decided to not even try getting up off the floor, because it sounded like Rocket had looked up whatever a Unity of Souls thingie was and was on his way to beat the everliving snot out of Peter.

"Oh good, you're all here! Do you know," Rocket said, as he stormed out of the stairwell door and onto the main deck, "Do you know what this miserable dumbfuck idiot did? Just guess."

"Rocket?" Gamora and Drax said in unison, and he swung toward them with a snarl.

"Oh, yeah, it's me! Do you know what he did? He fuckin' touched a Unity of Souls stone with his bare hands!"

"That is only a story for children," Gamora said dismissively. "There is no power in the universe that could actually do such a thing."

"Look at me! Do I look like I did when ya left a couple hours ago? No, I do not. He touched the thing, and now we're --" Rocket stopped, as if the words were too nasty to even contemplate holding in his mouth long enough to speak them.

" _What?_ " Peter asked urgently from the floor, because there were many ways this could be worse and better to rip the band-aid off now, so to speak.

"We're fuckin' _soul-married_ , you asshole."

Everyone started talking at once, and Peter's head chose that moment to start throbbing intensely. He was pretty sure one of his eyes was twitching, anyway. Drax was giving inappropriately effusive congratulations, and Gamora was questioning what exactly Rocket meant, and Rocket was impunging Peter's intelligence, parentage, species, and planet of origin in excruciatingly exact detail. Groot bellowed out an "I AM GROOT," and shook his branches threateningly when it seemed that Rocket had worked himself up into lunging at Peter again, but things didn't really calm down until Drax proposed opening a bottle and drinking in honor of the "happy couple" and Rocket declared he was willing to ignore that whole "wedding congratulations" shit if it meant he got to drink.

"Hey, you can probably drink a lot more now, right?" Peter said in a conciliatory tone.

"Don't speak to me," Rocket said, fishing around in one of his hidey-holes under the deck for his own bottle because he refused to share. He scraped his human-sized hand on the edge as he withdrew a bottle that was both cheap and full, and winced angrily. "My fuckin' hands are huge now, how am I gonna do anything with these?"

"I assume you have accessed information about this stone, Rocket. Explain," Gamora demanded, and Rocket sat down on the floor with his bottle, sighing. Peter realized it was probably because seeing them all at that angle was familiar to him.

"It's this artifact that's 'sposed to 'unite soulmates.' If a person touches one bare-handed -- what kind of thief are you anyway, fer fuck's sake, Quill, _put on some fuckin' gloves_ \-- anyways, if a person who has a soulmate touches it, then reality gets warped to bring their soulmate to 'em, to remove anything standin' in their way. It's like, once anything that was in the way of them bein' together is changed, reality kinda gels that way and ya can't change it."

"So this is permanent," Gamora clarified.

"Yes," Rocket said hatefully, shooting Peter a look full of malice that Peter thought probably shouldn't be as hot as he thought it was.

"What about the marriage?" Drax asked, and Peter realized Drax was a maiden aunt who just wanted to see everyone else get married and be happy. 

"It means we're stuck together. We won't be able to be apart or we'll get sick n' die, if it goes on long enough."

"Seriously?" Peter asked. 

"This is why you shouldn't work jobs by yourself, you _moron_. You never case anyplace enough, and you never do the research." Rocket took a pull from the bottle and then made a horrified face. "That tastes terrible! It never tasted that bad before." He looked at the bottle sadly, as if it had personally betrayed him, then shrugged and took another slug from the bottle neck. Peter was deeply uncomfortable with how he swallowed, because it made Rocket's throat do a thing that was just plain public obscenity. 

_My life has just become the most terrible wonderful mess,_ Peter thought disconsolately.

"If you'd done the research, I wouldn't be stuck like this," Rocket said. "I'm a fuckin' _Terran_ now," he sneered, in an unforgivably offended tone.

"Rocket, you said that if the person who touches it has a soulmate -- so you and Peter were already soulmates then, yes?" Drax asked.

Rocket closed his eyes, banging his head off the bulkhead behind him. "I don't know. I guess." Peter took the opportunity to drink in how Rocket looked now, with his head tipped back and eyes shut, the furious look softened into something like resignation, or anticipatory dread. _He's beautiful,_ Peter thought. His hands, hanging between his raised knees with the bottle held loosely in his grip, were graceful-looking, just a little too big for his frame but perfectly suited to him. He looked as if he might be a bit shorter than Peter when standing, maybe 5'9" or so, and muscular in a wiry, slight sort of way.

Peter was still looking when Rocket opened his eyes again, and Peter found he wasn't sure how to read the next expression on his face, as he met Peter's gaze. He had gotten so used to looking for Rocket's body language cues in his old body that he had no idea how to understand his new one at all. He looked hurt, somehow, as if Peter was intruding on something he'd never wanted known. He looked dourly expectant, as if he thought Peter would reject him now, despite the fact that Rocket himself had been loudly proclaiming how much he hated the whole thing as well as hating Peter himself.

"What now?" Gamora asked.

"I need to talk to Rocket, alone," Peter said, and got up off the floor. He walked over to Rocket and held his hand out to him, to help him up. Rocket scowled at it, and probably would have left Peter's hand just hanging there in mid-air if he'd been more confident with his new legs and height. He allowed Peter to pull him up, and they ended up standing chest-to-chest for a moment, before Rocket turned away, blushing. He put the bottle down and headed for the stairs, not waiting to see if Peter was following him.

"Congratulations!" Drax said as Peter moved to follow Rocket. "Enjoy your marital coupling!"

There was no real response to that that Peter felt prepared to offer, so he just waved at Drax over his shoulder and followed Rocket downstairs. In the corridor belowdecks, Rocket was just disappearing through the door of Peter's own room. When Peter walked in and closed the door behind him, Rocket turned to face him, crossing his arms defensively across his chest. Rocket's face suddenly went slack, and he ran his hand across his own collarbones, the slack look replaced with wonder. Peter knew he had just registered that the ugly metal struts and screws in his chest were gone, unmarked skin and bone in their place.

"I just realized nothin' hurts," he said.

"Did you hurt all the time, before?" Peter asked. He'd never known that.

"Yeah, I mean, I wasn't meant for walkin' on two legs, ya know? All the metal shit ached all the time. I don't think it was all gonna last much longer, sometimes I'd get these, like, shocks, like somethin' was shortin' out." He spread his hands in front of him, looking at his human hands and arms curiously. "I didn't have too much longer, anyway. I hacked my files later, after I got out, an' it said my natural lifespan was like, twenty years. I'm already eighteen."

"You were _dying_ ," Peter said, horrified. "You weren't gonna tell anyone?"

Rocket looked up from turning his hands over to study the palms. "Why would I?" he asked, in such a genuine tone of confusion that Peter wanted to cry. He hadn't even known he'd _had_ a soulmate, and he'd been here all this time, dying by slow degrees right in front of Peter. Worse than that -- Peter had long ago accepted that he was attracted to Rocket, at least to the genius brain and crudely honest, abrasive personality inside him, except...Peter's sexuality was fluid, but not _that_ fluid. _He was right here,_ Peter berated himself. _I really am a dumbfuck._

Before he'd completely made up his mind to do it, he was pulling Rocket into his arms. Rocket's first instinct was to fight him, and Peter wondered if anyone other than Groot had ever hugged Rocket before. "Man, chill, it's just a hug, okay?" He stubbornly kept his arms around Rocket until he slumped against Peter's shoulder in defeat. Rocket's hair brushed against Peter's cheek, the closely-shorn texture of velvet, and he smelled like trees and moss and the sharp tang of cordite and explosive and circuit-board ozone that always clung to his fur.

"I'm sorry that I did this to you. But I'm not sorry, either," Peter said, turning his head so that his lips brushed Rocket's ear as he spoke. "If I hadn't been a fuckup, you would have died. I'd rather you were here, even if you hate me."

"You're gonna end up hating me," Rocket muttered against his shoulder. "It's not gonna work, we're both gonna die, and it'll be my fault."

"Why would we die?" Peter asked, studying the curve of Rocket's ear, the whorls of short, stiff hair on the back of his neck.

"You heard what I said, we can't be away from each other for too long. I'm gonna fuck this up, and you'll kick me off the ship just to get away from me."

This time, Peter knew exactly what he was doing when he did it. He pulled Rocket upright and kissed him, feeling him start to fight him again, instinctively, and then relax into it so suddenly that he would have fallen without Peter's arms around him. Rocket breathed a tiny, shocked moan into Peter's mouth, and Peter slid the tip of his tongue along the underside of Rocket's upper lip, tasting the alcohol he'd drunk, tasting _Rocket_. Peter was deepening the kiss, already thinking of how to considerately, romantically, and immediately deflower his virgin soulmate, when Rocket pulled sharply away, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand.

"I gotta -- I need to -- to think," Rocket said, pushing Peter away from him and backing away, backing toward the door.

"Wait -- I thought we couldn't be apart," Peter said, protesting, still wound up in thinking of how to get Rocket's clothes off as soon as possible so that he could explore that brand-new body.

"We'll still be on the same ship, Quill, don't be creepy," Rocket said, turning to leave.

 _Rocket's wrong_ , Peter thought, as he watched him walk out. _He_ was the fuckup, and Rocket already hated him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel as if I've suckered you all in with a funny first chapter in order to spring subsequent chapters of the blackest, direst angst upon you. It wasn't intentional, but man this shit is gonna get dark quick, y'all. Go get some cocoa and a blankie before you hit that link for the next chapter.


	2. Deep inside of me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a fairy tale, the enchanted prince would be passionately grateful, when his rescuer lifted the spell and turned him from animal to human. This is no fairy tale. How can you have a magical, soul-ordained romance when the act of transformation that makes that love possible is an unforgivable offense to the transformed? This is Peter Quill's life, and he's fucking it up one reckless, stupid touch at a time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pure smut and angst. Enjoy! :)

For the first time in his life, Peter was less than satisfied with his mother's mix tape. 

He'd told himself he would be patient, he would give Rocket time to adjust, he would _not be creepy_. That last promise had lasted approximately forty-five minutes. All he'd wanted to do was eat dinner, in his own goddamn galley, but Rocket was already there, cleaning his guns. Peter had totally and completely meant to be absolutely normal and not stare at Rocket like a creepy creeper, watching his every move, and had failed utterly. He'd really meant to, honestly.

It was just -- he couldn't force himself to look away. 

Whatever this Unity thing had done, it was getting worse. Simple realization of attraction had, over the course of the last two hours, become a hunger to look at Rocket, to soak up how when he bent his head over his work, Peter could see tiny threads of silver in his hair at the temples that reminded him of the silvery-white guard hairs of Rocket's former pelt; how the tendons and muscles moved smoothly under the skin of his hands as he stripped down one of his guns, laying out the parts neatly like an exploded diagram. Observing became coveting, became fantasizing: looking down at Rocket's mouth around Peter's cock as he brushed his thumbs over those little glints of silver at his temples; feeling those clever hands sweeping down his back over and over as they fucked in Peter's bunk.

Peter had thought he was doing a pretty good job of not being creepy, although he was fantasizing in explicit detail about sweeping Rocket's gun parts and his own food off the table, dragging Rocket onto it, and making out until they both came in their pants. He was wrong, because just as Peter was picturing Rocket's eyes fluttering closed as Peter licked his throat, Rocket slammed his palms onto the table, glaring at Peter, and hissed, "What the _fuck_ is wrong with you? Stop starin' at me like I'm a freak."

Before Peter could defend himself, explain -- Rocket was gone, and Peter was sure if they lived in a house or apartment there would have been a slammed door involved. It was impossible to angrily slam an airlock. Peter tossed his dinner in the trash and resolutely did not go off to sulk in his quarters. For ten whole minutes. But then he _did_ , so now he was here, slumped on his bunk like a spurned, moody teenager, listening to his walkman and mooning over a boy who hated him.

And for the first time, his music was no comfort.

The last time he'd listened to Awesome Mix Vol. 1, he'd left off when the tape had been near the middle of side 1, so when he flopped down on his bed and tried to distract himself with some tunes, "Fooled Around and Fell In Love" was the first song he heard. 

He fast-forwarded. "I'm Not In Love" was no better. Neither was "I Want You Back."

> Let me tell ya now  
>  Oh baby, all I need is one more chance  
>  (To show you that I love you)  
>  Won't you please let me back in your heart  
>  Oh darlin', I was blind to let you go

Peter suddenly wondered if his mother's music choices had been motivated by missing the "angel of light" that she claimed fathered Peter on her. There were an awful lot of love songs here on a tape meant for a ten year old boy.

He flipped the tape over, hit play, and because Peter's life was a horrible place, of course "Come and Get Your Love" was the first song on side 2. Peter turned it off, set the walkman aside, and stared at the ceiling until he fell asleep, trying not to think of anything at all but especially not Rocket, and failing miserably.

When he woke a few hours later, he remembered nothing of his dreams but a deep, panicked longing. He was burning up, sweating through his clothes, every inch of his skin alive with chaotically-firing nerve endings, crawling with flame that pooled in the marrow of his bones. The dumb reptile brain at the bottom of Peter's consciousness, the part of his mind that served only to force him to survive, was screaming in alarm: something is _wrong_ , something is _wrong_ , go _find_ it, _find it now_. He scrambled up from his bed, moving without meaning to, only wanting to get out, to get out of this room and find the thing that was wrong and make it _stop_ , make it _right_ again. He was pulled, unwilling and unthinking, by a force that seemed to drag at him, stronger than gravity or intelligence or reason.

He staggered into the corridor, following whatever this new sense was, this new talent his brain stem had suddenly developed, leading him to what he was supposed to find. He had to find it or he would die, burning and alone, alone. He wrenched open the seal to Rocket's door, falling into the room, the atavistic, primitive part of his brain shrieking louder than ever, a clamoring alarm that rose to unbearable, unsustainable levels when he saw Rocket, curled at the head of his bunk, sweating and shivering just as Peter was. The instant he saw Rocket, the clarion call in Peter's head began screaming in exhultation, in victory: _mine, mine, mine mine mine mineminemine_. He'd found it; here was _home_ , here was _everything ever_ , here was the one person in the universe that was completely _his_.

Peter was across the room and sweeping the smaller man up into his arms and lap without thought, running his hands over Rocket everywhere he could reach, making sure he wasn't hurt. Rocket fought him viciously, shuddering as if he would fly apart into pieces in Peter's arms. There was no single moment when Peter's concerned, proprietary touch turned to possession and exploration, or when Rocket's panicked struggling turned into wrapping his arms around Peter's neck and pressing his body close, rather than seeking to flee. They were kissing, all Peter's technique and well-practiced skills gone as soon as he felt Rocket kissing him back, fumblingly, awkwardly, with more than enough need to make up for the lack -- there was no way to concentrate on being smooth, being the experienced one, with Rocket in his arms, kissing him back with too much teeth and spit and with utterly complete abandon.

Peter rolled them onto the bunk, covering Rocket's body with his own, yanking the neck of Rocket's shirt (Peter's own favorite shirt, and he would gladly rip it to shreds to get at Rocket's skin, _fuck_ the shirt) down to expose his throat, the silk of dark brown hair over Rocket's chest, so that he could bite down, claim, mark. He licked a hot stripe up the column of Rocket's throat, just as he'd fantasized about earlier. Rocket groaned, pushing his body up against Peter's as if he could force his way inside his chest and belly, and gasped, "What the fuck is going on?"

"I don't know," Peter murmured into the side of Rocket's throat, gnawing at the lobe of his ear and rubbing his cheek against the threads of silver at Rocket's temple. "Do you -- you wanna stop?" Every molecule of his body screamed in negation -- not stopping, ever, stopping would kill him, absolutely _kill_ him. _Please, no,_ Peter thought, _please say no._

"Don't think I can," Rocket panted into his ear. "I -- I can't --" His hands were on Peter's ass, pulling him down and grinding up against him, their legs tangled together. Dry-humping like teenagers. Peter knew Rocket wouldn't last much longer; neither of them was likely to last long enough to even get their pants down, at this rate. It was messy and awkward and embarrassing and _perfect_. Rocket didn't seem to know what his body was doing, and when Peter caught his gaze, Rocket's pupils were blown wide, darkening those chilly blue eyes, and he looked shocked and amazed and terrified. He was blushing intensely, the color spreading down his cheeks, onto his throat and under the pulled-down neck of Peter's shirt. Peter wanted to rip the shirt open completely and see how far down that rosy color went, but there was no time, no ability to do anything but clutch at whatever parts of Rocket he could get his hands on and thrust down against him.

Peter had never felt such a total loss of control before, had always been a little above his partners, clear-eyed and sharp, getting most of his pleasure from how competently he could take someone apart with his hands and tongue and cock. This was something entirely different. He had no restraint, barely knew he was coming before he did, and knew Rocket was coming too when he bucked up underneath him so hard that Peter was almost thrown off, felt him shuddering all over like a hard-ridden horse. He relaxed onto Rocket for a moment, then rolled off, wrapping his arms around him to pull him along, tuck him up under Peter's chin and along his side.

Rocket pushed at him, got his arms free of Peter's embrace, and sat up on the bunk, still shaking. "What the fuck was that?" He looked utterly debauched: bite marks trailed down his neck and under the collar of the now-ruined shirt; he was flushed, sweating, panting, cum soaking into his borrowed pants and a look of disbelief on his face.

"That was amazing," Peter said, admiring the pretty mess he'd made and already thinking about going for round two.

"That was _fucked up_ ," Rocket said angrily, and got off the bunk, turning his back on Peter. "I didn't want any of this. You didn't ask me, you just did it."

"I thought you were into it, too, man," Peter said, suddenly feeling cold doubt in the pit of his stomach.

"Of course I was into it, my whole body got re-made to _make me_ be into it," Rocket sneered, and the cold doubt became horror. "Get out."

"No, listen --" Peter sat up, desperate to re-wind back to a few minutes ago when he'd felt like nothing could ever be wrong again, like he was home and everything he'd ever needed was in his reach, in his arms.

Rocket's face was completely closed against him when he turned to face Peter. "If we're stuck as soulmates, fine. If we're stuck on the same ship, fine. But don't fuckin' bust into my room and just -- just _molest_ me. You got your nut, now get out n' let me sleep."

"I don't think that's going to work, we were both sick --"

" _I don't care._ I'm done with people thinkin' they can make me do whatever they want."

Peter stood up on shaking legs, reaching out for Rocket. Rocket turned away, presenting Peter with an angry profile and hunched, tensed shoulders. If he'd been in his old form, his ears would have been skinned back against his skull, his tail stiff and bristled. Peter would have known, seeing his ears and tail, to back off or risk being bitten. He knew he had to back off now, too, or risk worse.

He glanced back at Rocket as he left, and each step felt like he was drawing further and further away from home, and would never see it again.


	3. You just don't realize

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Falling in love is overpowering, and scary, and it's a long, long way down. That's why humans call it falling. Rocket doesn't know where to stand, where it's safe to relax, because now that he's been thrust into this human body, every moment in Peter's presence is a sheer drop that he's tumbling over, and he doesn't even know if there's a bottom to hit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is from Rocket's POV. Due to ~~begging~~ suggestions from readers, I will begin alternating POVs, with two chapters from Peter, and two chapters from Rocket. Also in response to reader requests, this chapter includes two much-asked-for tidbits: Rocket cleaning his guns, and Rocket examining his brand-new human body.

Repetition was soothing. Stripping a gun down to its component parts, cleaning each piece with meticulous care, laying the pieces out in a neat, ordered pattern. Over and over. The mindlessness of it was sometimes the only way to drown out the noise in Rocket's head. When his attention would begin to wander he would push it back, push it away from the dark places in his mind, back onto the gun, the pieces, the order.

It wasn't working.

Focusing on removing the trigger-guard drew Rocket's attention to his clumsy, uncooperative, _human_ hands as he turned the railgun over to unseat the screws he'd fabricated to secure the custom trigger housing, moved back half a foot on the stock to compensate for his short reach. Thinking of the modifications he'd made to the gun reminded him that it would be useless to him now, his arms too long, the trigger-guard loop too small for his huge, Terran fingers, the scope at the wrong distance for his new eyes. He wanted to throw it against the wall, but forced himself to sit motionless, to still the shaking of his hands -- his hands had always been the best part of him, aside from his mind, clever little hands that could build anything, and now they weren't _his_ hands anymore -- and then started again, going through the motions of stripping, cleaning, ordering, motions so familiar he could do it in his sleep.

Groot was nearby, like always -- _at least one thing's still the same, now that he's full-grown again,_ Rocket thought. He tried to relax, tried to make himself forget that _everything else_ had changed. He had Groot, he had his guns, he had his brains and his talent. He could make his hands relearn their cleverness, if he had to. He had managed to quiet his mind enough to allow for actual thoughts now, and was working out in his head how he would need to reconfigure or replace his tools, now that his hands were bigger, which tools could be modded and which could not, sketching out how to alter the railgun for his new height and reach in the back of his mind at the same time -- when Peter walked into the galley and every bit of peace and control he'd fought so hard for was gone.

Every single one of his new, weirdly blunted human senses was tuned to Peter -- before, Rocket could have forecast Peter's mood from his scent alone, but he could no longer pick it out from across the room. The world around him smelled like _nothing_ , compared to the richness of his animal senses. His vision was worse, too -- his new eyes didn't single out tiny details as his enhanced, improved vision had; his human eyes sought out the whole picture at once, drowning him in visual errata that he couldn't sort through fast enough. His hands weren't just too big, they were _numb_ , compared to the sensitivity they had possessed before. Nothing was the same -- couldn't see, couldn't smell, couldn't feel -- but Peter was crisp and clear and focused, everything washed out and dull in comparison.

The coppery color of Peter's hair, the laughing crinkles at the corners of his eyes as he squinted into the food storage unit, the way his weight shifted smoothly from one hip to the other as he turned to seat himself at the table -- Rocket didn't want to notice any of it, but he couldn't look away. As Peter met his gaze, Rocket dropped his eyes down to the table, putting the firing mechanism down in the right spot in the pattern, picking up the half-stripped frame, trying to ignore that now, now he could smell Peter's scent. He couldn't tease it apart into its components, disassembling it down to its bits and pieces as his sense of smell could have before, his nose as clever as his hands had been -- now it was just _Peter_ , warm and close by and staring at him steadily over his plate of food.

Humanity -- or maybe the Unity stone, Rocket had no way of knowing -- had given him new senses as well: he could perceive Peter's closeness to him without looking, without meaning to. He was sharply, painfully aware of the distance between them, and his mind intruded with all the ways he could close that distance. All the sensitivity his hands had lost had been gained by the soft, hairless, pale skin covering his entire body -- he could feel imagined warmth on his cheek, his chest, as he helplessly pictured Peter taking him in his arms, could feel ghosted hands on his back, stroking and groping. He wanted to reach across the table, pull Peter against him, kiss him, touch him. He felt a hot, aching heaviness in his groin, and realized his new human cock was throbbing and hard. It wanted, and in turn forced him to want.

His stomach turned with shame and self-hatred -- he hadn't ever had precisely _these_ kind of thoughts about Peter, but he had wanted him in a confused, vague way. Something about him was _right_ , something drew Rocket to him like recklessly orbiting an event horizon, a tugging that was dangerous but irresistible, if you went too far. Got too close. Rocket had never understood human sex fully, had been given no sex drive or needs to speak of when he was made, but there had still been desire of a sort, a coveteous longing, thwarted and unclear, with no possible outlet -- and for him, the day he met Peter, it had focused itself and never stopped, never wavered. He knew it was wrong to take Peter's offered friendship and use it to fuel his fantasies, but couldn't make himself stop. He hated himself so deeply for it, felt so sick and perverse when he thought of Peter -- and Peter, _Peter_ would think he was disgusting, this fucked up little animal, wanting a human, wanting _him_. It was wrong.

The fantasies he'd had before -- being close to Peter, being held by him, sleeping next to him, telling him that he loved him -- they were bad enough, but these human desires were so wrong that he could barely stand the sickness of being in his new skin. His new skin that needed to be touched, that spurred him to want to rip his own clothes off and fit as much of it up against Peter's bare skin as he could. His cock ached and strained against the cloth covering it. He glanced up and saw that Peter was staring at him. There was a terrifying, intense light in his eyes, as if he was taking Rocket apart with his gaze alone, judging and weighing him, and Rocket knew he had to get out, get away, or he would do something stupid. He couldn't bear to have Peter look at him like that, as if he could read the dirty, shameful, sick thoughts in Rocket's head.

"What the _fuck_ is wrong with you? Stop starin' at me like I'm a freak," Rocket said, and slammed his hands onto the table, pushing himself to his feet, the neatly-ordered gun parts scattering. Before Peter could say anything, could tell Rocket how disgusting he thought he was, Rocket was out of the galley and in his quarters, shutting the door behind him. A small sink was in the corner, a mirror mounted above it, and Rocket saw nothing he recognized in its reflection. Even being able to see himself was a momentary shock, made him startle as if some strange human was in the room -- he had never been tall enough to look into it without climbing up onto the sink itself before. He had seldom ever bothered, because he already knew what he would see: a worthless, disgusting little freak. A monster.

 _There **is** a stranger in here,_ Rocket thought, and leaned against the sink, looking into his own eyes. They were a pale, crisp blue, even bluer than Peter's eyes. He had no way of judging whether this new face of his was ugly or not -- he had known that Peter was handsome by the reactions of other humans, but he had thought that regardless, he would have liked the way Peter looked. He closed his eyes, seeing Peter behind them -- Peter smiling at him with the expression that Rocket had seen him turn on Gamora, turn on other beings they met: a slanted grin and warm eyes and a sense of invitation. The fantasy that had come closest to making Rocket feel what he had supposed was lust had been of Peter looking at him with that smile, that sly, dirty, inviting little grin.

A cramp of desire went through him, nearly doubling him over, and he held onto the edge of the sink, panting harshly. He looked up into the mirror again, and his face was flushed, this stranger staring back at him with his mouth hanging open and eyes wild and unfocused. All the things he had never understood enough about to want were flooding his mind, drowning him in images and imagined sensations. His cock was throbbing relentlessly, his skin itching to be naked to the air, to be touched everywhere. There was a nagging, burning need to -- do _something_ , something that yet still escaped him. He didn't understand any of this, he didn't _know_ \-- and he always knew _everything_ , he was _smart_ , smarter than everyone else, it was the only thing he was good for and now he was just as dumb as the dumb animal everyone had always assumed him to be.

With a snarl, he pulled his borrowed clothing off roughly, throwing it across the room to get Peter's scent off of himself. He might not have been able to catalog every nuance of that scent, but it was maddening all the same. Exposed to the air, he shivered and turned back to the sink, looking at himself, as much as he could see in the waist-high mirror. His chest was not as muscled as Peter's was -- and how ashamed he was of himself, the way Peter thought nothing of changing in front of him and how disgusting he was to look and memorize and file away each time, was unspeakable -- and where Peter had smooth, hairless skin, Rocket had an even, thick dusting of silky brown hair that tapered to a single line that trailed down his belly to his human cock.

He leaned back from the sink, staring down at himself curiously. He'd known what human cocks looked like, of course, but even in his dirtiest fantasies had never dared to picture what Peter's cock might look like. Now he looked at his own, reaching down to take hold of it and hissing in breath between his teeth at the sensation of his fingers dragging back the hood of flesh at the end. He repeated the movement, wondering what it meant, to feel this kind of pleasure from a touch -- this was like nothing he had ever experienced. In his mind's eye now it was Peter's hand on his cock, Peter grinning that filthy fucking grin and stroking him harder and faster. He felt drunk, head fuzzy and buzzing with static, his mind empty of all the shouting thoughts that always plagued him, filled with nothing but _Peter_. He felt as if he couldn't stop now, this was a ride that he had to finish, that there was a goal and a reason and he was stumbling toward it with no direction save the pounding of his head and the throbbing in his unfamiliar flesh.

When the something that he had been reaching for happened, Rocket thought for a moment that he was dying -- the rush of bliss was so complete and so overpowering, he was being torn apart and rebuilt all over again and no one could feel this much pure, piercing _sensation_ and survive it. When it was over, he was hunched again at the edge of the sink, one hand clutching it for balance and the other hand wet and sticky, wrapped around his softening cock. He washed his hands immediately, flushing now not with desire but with shame at what he had done. He could never, ever face Peter again. He grabbed a towel and cleaned himself angrily, wanting to hide that this had ever happened. He realized now, clearer-headed after what he now knew was a human orgasm, that jerking off was what he had just done. How sick was he, that the first thing he'd done as a human was jerk off while fantasizing about his best friend? 

"Great. I was a pervert as an animal, n' now I'm a pervert as a humie," he muttered at himself in the mirror, gut rolling with shame at the look on that face, that fucked-up stranger who was no better as a human than he had been as a freak. Too angry to meet his own eyes, he glanced down at his body again, and then rushed to the corner where he'd flung the shirt and pants he'd taken from Peter's bunk. He had to cover it up, couldn't bear to see it anymore, and even if Peter's clothing smelled like him, it was better than accidentally glancing down at this freakshow he was stuck in.

Miserably sick of himself, he curled up on his bunk, sighing when he realized he no could no longer twist nose to tail and hide his face safely while he slept. He settled for bringing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them, face buried against them. He emptied his mind by force, reciting the names of every brand and every caliber of gun he knew, repeating them like a mantra until he dropped into an uneasy doze.


	4. What you do to me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter doesn't realize how vicious a trapped animal -- or former uplifted animal -- can be, once he's decided to escape the trap he's in, at all costs. He doesn't understand that his careless act has made him Rocket's new keeper, or what a dangerous position that is. Rocket has to decide whether he will freeze and submit to his new keeper's control, or fight...
> 
> ...and Rocket hasn't survived this long by submitting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is light on smut, heavy on angst. There is also significant discussion of triggery subjects, such as medical trauma, suicidal intent, severe mental illness, and dubious sexual consent/gray area sexual assault. If you think that you might be triggered by this content, please do not read this particular chapter.

When Rocket woke a few hours later, it was with a deep, craven sense of relief. _Thank fuck,_ he thought, _I'm dying._ Every part of him hurt, hurt like the endless times he had been ripped apart and remade. His bones ached and burned, his skin was scorching, and he was drenched in sweat, shivering in his now sodden, borrowed clothes. This at least was familiar. Maybe the stone hadn't changed whatever it was that had been killing him, he hoped. He would be done with all this shit soon. He would never have to look Peter in the eye and try not to let his sickness for him show on his new face.

This, pain so intense and rending that for long stretches Rocket knew nothing but white blankness and had to relearn himself all over again when it passed -- this he knew intimately and understood. He had no fear of it any longer. There was no riding out or enduring this kind of pain; you were simply carried along by it. Each time Rocket whited out, he wondered with no real interest if he would come back from it this time, or if he would finally, finally die.

_Not just you,_ a voice in his mind whispered. _He'll die too._

He couldn't allow the horror and loss he'd immediately felt at that thought to sink in, there was just no room for it alongside his greater horror at being remade, again, ripped down and built back up to suit someone else's desires. He loved Peter, yes, but not even Peter could own him this completely, trap him like this. It wasn't fair that Peter would suffer too, but the stony, ruined bedrock at the very core of who Rocket had been forced to become to survive could only think that Peter had done this, not him. 

The whisper that had spoken up in the back of his mind like wind over cracked stone was calling louder now, showing him Peter, sick and in pain and dying, just as he was. The call became a shrieking howl, blending into the pain in his body, becoming one and the same. The panicked demand in his mind, that he had to _move_ , to _get up_ , to _find him find him findhimfindhim_ was close enough to the base, mindless instincts he'd retained in his uplifted animal form to make him even more stubborn, more determined to die before he would answer it. This might be the only dignity he had left, and he'd be damned if he'd give it up, even for Peter Quill.

The mental scream became excruciating, so loud and shrill that Rocket began to think it would be what killed him after all. He stayed where he was, using the trick he had taught himself, in the endless operating theaters and cold tiled rooms and barred cages, to remove himself from his body. He wasn't really there, didn't have to be there for this, his body could survive just fine without his mind and if it didn't, so what? He was nothing, he was cold empty vacuum. He wasn't listening to that mental call anymore; he was far enough away now that he could ignore it if he chose, and so he did.

He wasn't listening, so he never noticed that the deafening shriek had changed, become relief and welcome, until he felt hands grabbing him, peeling his knees and clasped arms from in front of his face and spilling him onto a lap, hands all over him, sweeping his limbs from end to end, touching every part of him. He fought back wildly, hated instincts taking over after all, fighting to escape the arms trapping him. He only truly came all the way to himself again when he felt Peter kissing him, stealing his breath and bringing the pain he'd been in for hours to a sudden, almost sickeningly sharp end. One moment was panic and pain; the next was sweet balm and calmness and pleasure. The relief was so immense, so crushing, that he gave in and let himself do what his mind had been screaming at him to do: follow Peter. Where Peter's kiss led, he tried to go, knowing he must seem clumsy beyond belief to someone as experienced as Peter. He'd followed Peter into terrifying places before, he could follow him now and do his best to keep up.

He was unprepared, though, when Peter swept them over onto the bunk and pressed Rocket underneath his body, grinding his hips against him and burying his face in the crook of Rocket's neck and shoulder. Cold vertigo shook him -- he was trapped again, held down, unable to move. His will to follow Peter's lead left him for a moment and he gasped out, "What the fuck is going on?"

He had been prepared to surrender to this, to stop fighting and do whatever this bond would bid him to -- but now that he was held in place, it was too close to being held in place under thick leather straps while he was cut into, already self-aware, completely lucid, and wide awake. Those were the worst memories, the ones whose appearance in his thoughts and nightmares led to days he didn't entirely remember, days when he hid from the others in the tightest spaces on the ship, the smallest boltholes he could find, and held off complete panic by sheer force of exhausting will. 

"Do you -- you wanna stop?" Peter said, and Rocket knew that despite his panic, despite the memory of leather straps clouding over the sensation of Peter's body holding him down, he wouldn't be able to give any answer except the one his body was giving for him. Rocket might be having second thoughts about following Peter into this, but his body had no doubts or backward glances to spare.

He feels himself moving without making the decision to, wrapping his arms around Peter, and when his hands land on Peter's ass, he pulls down, grinding up against Peter at the same time. He has no real idea what he's doing -- this is so far past any fantasies or dreams he'd had about being with Peter that he's in unknown, uncharted territory now. He wants to stop, needs desperately to stop, but he doesn't, either, and the part of him that hates Peter for doing this to him, doing all of this to him, is left screaming in impotent rage at the greater part that is cowardly enough to want this, to participate in this. 

"Don't think I can, I -- I can't --" Rocket stuttered, and Peter just kept going. Kept grinding Rocket down into the mattress, biting and gnawing at Rocket's throat, putting his hands all over Rocket, everywhere he could reach. Rocket knew that the _something_ he'd experienced a while ago, by himself, was coming. He felt as if he was hurtling down, down, down in a death-spiraling fighter, the inevitable collision with the ground approaching at terminal velocity, and he couldn't stop it. The utter loss of control of his first human orgasm had been terrifying, and the idea of being so vulnerable again, now, pinned under Peter, was horrible. 

His body continued on its own self-plotted course, and Rocket was pulled along with it, losing himself to it. It was just as overwhelming and obliterating as the first time, and Rocket closed his eyes and tried to remove himself from it all. He couldn't, he couldn't get enough distance from the sweaty, grunting reality of it -- Peter was all over him, all around him, moaning and gasping his way through his own orgasm and then falling heavily onto Rocket, breathing harshly. Rocket understood every joke and comment he'd ever heard about feeling used, suddenly. He felt used up. Peter had used him to get what he wanted, and now that he was satisfied, he would leave, Rocket hoped. 

Instead of getting up and leaving, Peter rolled off and pulled Rocket against him, trapping his arms and trying to push Rocket down so that he was wedged under Peter's chin and held securely against his side. Rocket felt his head beginning to clear, just as before -- the pleasure-fogged buzz in his head was receding, to be replaced with cold, empty fury. He pulled viciously away from Peter, sitting up and taking stock of himself: his neck stung with bite marks, he was drenched in sweat, and he felt the stickiness of cum on his skin. When he looked over at Peter, he had a dazzling grin on his face and the air of a man who has done good, honest work.

"That was _amazing_ ," Peter said, and Rocket hated him so intensely for a moment that he could not even _see_ him through a veil of anger. 

"That was _fucked up_ ," Rocket said, and got up, turning his back on that beautiful, brilliant, happy smile. He would have broken himself to pieces for that smile once -- had almost succeeded, in fact, had crashed a fighter into a massive ship, all for Peter Quill, _fuck_ the galaxy. Now he just wanted him gone. He knew, in the part of his mind that was deeply realistic as well as blackly pessimistic -- because those two things often coincided, in Rocket's view -- that this wasn't the end of it, that Peter would come to him again, and he would probably let him. If the last few hours were anything to go by, he would be forced to. 

Making Peter leave was physically painful, but he had to _think_. The coldly practical part of Rocket that had planned his escape from the facility that created him, the part that had sealed all access points and then activated the carbon dioxide fire suppression system, suffocating every living being inside (the scientists who had mutilated him deserved execution; the other subjects deserved to be euthanized), that part was already calculating, working through the angles, determining just how much of his dignity he was prepared to give up to survive this. How much of himself could he let Peter have without diminishing who he was, and who he had been?

_Break it down into parts,_ he reminded himself. _Just like anything else, you can take it apart and see how it works._ He was thankful, as he had rarely ever been thankful for anything in his life, that whatever had been done to him this time had not taken any of his intelligence or mental enhancements. His body had been rebuilt completely, but all the goodies in the attic were still there. He still had complete eidetic recall of information, so he reviewed what he had absorbed in the space of a glance, when he'd retreated to his cabin and looked up whatever the fuck it was that Quill had touched.

Physical proximity would lessen the pain. Until the bond was consummated -- and Rocket outwardly flinched when he recalled reading it before, and how ignorant of all the implications of the term "consummation" he had been then -- there would be a constant, low level of distress. Rocket decided that if he could keep Quill off of him as much as possible, he could deal with the low-level disquiet and unease. How much different could it be from how he felt every moment of every day, with the most innocuous images and sounds threatening to set off flashbacks of being sliced open, of having a civilization's worth of learning crammed into his bleeding brain-meat as he screamed and his synapses sizzled? Constant, creeping unease was a standard feature of Rocket's mental landscape. He could stand it, he knew.

Peter was a different story. Peter would be the hard target in all this -- Rocket knew that he would eventually adjust to his new self, his new situation, as he had done the moment he became self-aware, but Peter would be a little bitch about it, Rocket suspected. He was very sure that Peter Quill denied himself very little, and dealt with pain and deprivation poorly. He was a thief, and if he wanted it, he took it. That was fine; Rocket was a thief, too, and a smarter one than Peter. If he had to steal back his dignity, piece by tiny piece, well, it was nothing he hadn't done before.

He sat down on his bunk and thought about being near Peter. He could feel that he was already starting to sicken again -- he felt as if his body temperature was slowly rising, his muscles ached in a far-off way, and just thinking of being closer to Peter made his feet itch to carry him into the hall and into Peter's room, promised sweet relief from the coming pain. It wasn't intolerable, but it would become so, soon. He stood up and moved to the door, bowing his head and listening for that instinct that had spoken up before. Even just this small distance closer felt better. He wanted to open the door, go to him, but he made himself stay. _I just need to figure it out first. Just think._

So, proximity. Could he be close to Peter, without Peter attacking him again? If he got closer still, maybe in the same room with Peter, he felt as if the pain and sickness would recede entirely, leaving only the creeping unease the book he'd accessed had mentioned. That would be acceptable, if Peter would cooperate and just -- not touch him. Be normal. Let him pretend this was all okay and let him get used to being something new all over again.

How could he get the high ground here? His new body was still too unfamiliar to give him any confidence that he could enforce a "no touching" rule with his bare hands. Intellectually, he knew that he probably was nearly as heavy as, and as strong as Peter, even if he wasn't as tall, but without the skill to use his new muscles, he would be at a disadvantage. Gamora or Drax would probably be willing to drill him in hand-to-hand techniques, if he asked, but learning would take time. On the other hand, he would need to learn anyway, if he meant to still be a useful part of the crew. He decided to start training as soon as one of them agreed, and put the idea of using those skills to protect himself from Peter's touch aside, for the time being.

For now, he would have to enforce his will some other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • The description of "whiting out" during severe physical pain is a fairly accurate depiction of my personal experience of pudendal neuralgia (pelvic nerve pain). I have experienced pain at the 9-10 end of the pain scale, and after coming out of a "white out," I literally do not remember who I am or where I am for several very disorienting seconds.
> 
> • I suffer from PTSD. The description of dissociation is also personal experience. It's a handy trick when you're actually in a dangerous situation; not so handy when you get triggered into a panic attack and check out of your body when you have shit to do that day.


	5. When you hold me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Examining your motives and considering the implications of your behavior was for people who were not raised by feral space pirates in a Lord of the Flies-esque vacuum of supervision, in Peter Quill's view. Which was exactly how he got into this fucking mess with Rocket in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're back to Peter's POV, and this was a difficult chapter to write. Again there is significant discussion of triggery subjects, including medical trauma and date rape/gray area sexual assault. If you might be triggered by this content, please skip this chapter. Don't worry, though, it's gonna be a little fluffier in the next couple of chapters, so buck up, little campers, we'll get there soon.

Peter tossed sleeplessly on his bunk, replaying every moment of his encounter with Rocket, and despising himself for it. He couldn't understand how things had gotten so fucked up, so fast. He felt sick -- not just the sickness of the thwarted bond, but sick that he had been so selfish and thoughtless. His thoughts circled around and around the subject of his own disgust at himself, over and over, until he couldn't stand the noise in his head anymore. The mental voice was becoming insistent, that he had to get up, to go to him, to --

The mental voice quieted just as Peter realized he could hear footsteps stopping in front of his door. He sat up, knowing without a single doubt that it was Rocket. The door unsealed and Rocket kicked it open, pushing his way inside with his railgun held at his waist, braced against his hip, aimed at Peter. "You n' me are gonna talk."

"Is the gun necessary for this talk?" Peter asked, wondering if he should put his hands up.

"Makes me feel better," Rocket said, and kicked the door shut again behind himself. "Look, here's how this is gonna go. We have to be around each other, no choice about that, thanks to you. But you -- you do not touch me. You don't hug me, you don't try to make out with me, _nothing_. Everything goes back to normal, and we don't talk about it. You don't treat me any different in front of anybody else. We have to stay near each other, so no more side trips to steal shit you shouldn't be messin' with in the first place. Where I go, you go, but don't think that means I like you, or want to be your fucking friend. _We are not fucking soul mates._ Aside from what we have to do to keep from dying, nothing changes. Understood?"

"What do you mean, 'what we have to do?'" Peter asked.

"I'm sleepin' in here from now on. Don't get your hopes up, Quill," Rocket cut him off, when Peter opened his mouth to say something. "I'm just here so I know I'll wake up in the morning and not die in my sleep because you're a fuckup. "

Peter closed his mouth and wordlessly moved over on the bed -- he'd had a larger bed installed, when the Milano was rebuilt, and wanted to laugh at himself for having such grandiose expectations as to buy a bigger bed for all the sex he'd planned on having with Gamora, maybe Drax too, if the big guy was amenable -- to make room for Rocket.

Rocket shook his head, the gun never wavering from its steady bead on Peter's face. "Just gimme a blanket."

"You're gonna sleep on the floor?"

"Like I haven't before?" Rocket caught the blanket Peter slung toward him one-handed, and backed into the corner of the room, gun still pointed as if he was covering an adversary who would attack at the slightest lapse in concentration. He sat down, wrapped the blanket around himself, and only then did the barrel of the railgun stop targeting Peter. Rocket lay down on his side, facing out into the room with his back against the wall, and the gun laid down along the front of his body with the muzzle pointed toward his feet. Peter realized he was taking a defensive position, against Peter himself, and his heart stung with guilt.

Rocket's eyes stayed locked on him, just as unwaveringly as the gun barrel had, as Peter stared back at him across the dim room, lying on his side in bed while Rocket curled up on the hard floor. Rocket looked as if he was prepared to stay awake as long as Peter still was, and Peter wondered for the first time just what the hell had really happened between them -- there was what Peter thought had happened, and then there was what Rocket thought had happened, and Peter understood suddenly that maybe his own version wasn't the canonical one. That maybe he had seen everything through such a muddy veil of his own selfishness and soul-bond-augmented lust and complete confidence in his welcome -- no, his _sovereign right_ \-- to Rocket, that he had misjudged everything. 

He thought about how the soul mate thing made him feel -- out of control, running on instinct, totally consumed with desire to have what belonged to him. He wondered what Rocket was getting from it, if it was something different for him. He'd not even given a thought to the possibility that Rocket didn't feel the same. He rolled over on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

He remembered Rocket sitting at the galley table, when Peter had first come into the room, how he was sitting there staring fixedly at his new hands, how they had been shaking, how it looked like it took enormous effort to make himself pick up the gun and go back to work on it. Before, Peter had cautiously enjoyed watching Rocket work, from a safe distance, because his tiny hands danced so delicately and with such precision over his creations that it was both soothing and somehow exciting to watch. Like watching intricate, dizzyingly fractal snowflakes crystallizing. Snowflakes that could blow up moons. 

_I took all that away,_ Peter thought. _What else did I take away?_ He knew for certain that he hadn't been offering anything in return, either. He had changed Rocket's entire life, his entire body -- and flushed with shame in the dark when he remembered that the first time he had ever considered Rocket to be an actual person was the night in the bar, when Rocket had gotten drunk and picked a fight with Drax over calling him vermin. Before that, he had been a weird little curiosity. It was funny to hear this cute raccoon cursing and see him shooting people and scampering around -- but hearing the pain and remembered horror in his voice as he talked about how he had been made was enough to shock Peter into considering him to be as much a person as Peter was himself. After knowing him this long, it had sunk in for Peter how deeply Rocket had been damaged by what had been done to him -- Peter might be a shallow fuck with a conman's empathy, shiny and slick and without substance, but even he could see that the brutality of his past was never far away for Rocket.

Rocket's entire life had been broken into a new shape before, when he was brought to self-awareness. He'd talked a little about it once, drunk off his ass on cheap whiskey and elation that Groot had finally grown big enough to accompany them on a mission, and sitting cradled in Groot's branches, he'd talked to Peter fairly calmly about things that had given Peter hung-over nightmares when he'd slept later.

How his first two self-aware thoughts had been _"This is me,"_ and _"Something is cutting into me."_ How he had been sedated as an animal with only fuzzy perceptions of his situation, and awakened from sedation with sentience and a world of information forced into his mind, all of it coalescing in one lurching instant to tell him what he needed to know about the world and his place in it: there was pain, and there was power, and the ones with the power gave the pain. He took pain and had no power, at least not then. He had told Peter about gassing the facility with no particular tone at all in his voice, and that had been in Peter's nightmares too.

Now Peter had, unintentionally, broken Rocket's life and self into a whole new shape all over again. He hadn't meant to, any more than he had meant to force Rocket into letting him -- Rocket had said _molest_ him, and Peter realized he was right. He had circled around the edges of this thought ever since Rocket had driven him out of his room, and his gut rolled with shame and disgust as he faced it full-on. He'd all but raped Rocket, if you wanted to be perfectly clear about how fucked up the whole thing had been. He had never hated anyone or anything as much as he hated himself at that moment, because he'd raped Rocket's _life_ , too. Forced him into a situation where he was trapped with no choices left.

He hadn't meant to do it, but that didn't change anything. He wasn't sure if there was a way to make up for this, to atone for it. Was there a sorry big enough for this? He had to do something, but he had no idea what it could be. 

Peter felt exhausted, just from thinking this through without running away from himself, without blasting music to drown out his thoughts or getting drunk or going looking for a fight or a fuck. He knew that was why he'd fucked up so much so fast with Rocket -- examining your motives and considering the implications of your behavior was for people who were not raised by feral space pirates in a Lord of the Flies-esque vacuum of supervision.

He rolled over and put his back to the room, hoping that Rocket would relax a little if Peter wasn't obviously still awake and looking at him. He pretended to sleep, willing himself to stay still. He didn't have to feign sleep long, because ever since strolling blithely through the airlock into the galley and into the mess he'd made, he'd slept perhaps six hours over the last two days. What little sleep he had managed to get was like paging through the chapters of a book -- broken sleep chopped up with constant waking, and every awakening was a new twist in the story, over and over, waking to some new plotline. He hated it, and wished the author of his life would let up on him just a little, maybe let him get some real sleep.

Somewhere in the middle of the ship's night-sleep cycle, Peter's rest, still uneasy and brittle even with Rocket in the room with him, smoothed out into the peaceful, easy sleep he'd been wishing for. He realized why when he made a move to turn over and found himself trapped by Rocket's arm slung over his waist, and Rocket's body pressed up against his back -- with the railgun placed between them. Peter froze, listening intently for Rocket's breathing, for any indication he was awake. He could feel that the gun was laid lengthwise, just as Rocket had put it down within his reach when he went to sleep on the floor.

"Rocket?" Peter whispered.

"What?" came the surly, sleep-fuzzed reply, Rocket's breath stirring the hair on the back of Peter's neck. Peter was suddenly very glad to be the one facing away, because he was fairly sure that Rocket's patience was so thin that he was one mis-timed, awkward erection from shooting Peter in the head. The conduct of Peter's penis had gotten him injured and nearly killed many times in the past, but "death by unwelcome hard-on" would be a new low, even for Peter. Besides, Peter realized now that his dick had done enough damage here for the time being. 

"I thought you were gonna sleep on the floor," Peter ventured, wondering just how Rocket had gone from _"I'll kill you if you touch me,"_ to _"I'm the big spoon."_

"Shut up. Wanna sleep."

"Does the gun help you sleep?"

"Yes. Stop talking."

Peter stopped talking, and even with the gun a heavy presence against his back, slept deeply and thoroughly. 

It became routine: spend all day in each other's orbit, interacting only when necessary but always aware of the other's presence like a firefly flitting at the edge of visual range, and then sleeping in the same bed at night. Sleeping near each other seemed to be key in holding off the bond-sickness, and Peter began to weirdly enjoy going to bed at night, knowing that he would sleep well and deeply, with Rocket lying curled up behind his back.

Sleeping on the floor had never been brought up again; the gun stopped making an appearance a week into the arrangement, as well. Rocket didn't actually spoon up against Peter, but he lay close enough that Peter could feel the heat of his body, and he kept one arm over Peter's waist. Peter had to remind himself that Rocket was doing it not because he wanted to hold Peter, but as an early-warning system to alert him if Peter tried to touch him -- it was intimate, and comfortable, and it was easy to let himself think of it as loving and sweet, if he was able to forget why Rocket was in his bed in the first place.

During the day, nothing seemed any different, and if the others did notice that Rocket and Peter steadfastly avoided being out of each other's sight, no one made any comment. Peter wasn't sure what Rocket had said to Drax and Gamora, how he had explained the situation, but Drax had stopped making references to Peter as Rocket's bondmate or husband, and Gamora was drilling Rocket in hand-to-hand self defense every morning in the cargo hold and had been noticeably cooler toward Peter for several days until Rocket finally seemed to be merely simmering with anger rather than repressed, murderous rage. He realized Gamora was taking Rocket's side in this, and found himself glad that at least someone was looking out for Rocket better than Peter himself had.

Rocket had come to bed tonight with an ice pack on his shoulder; Gamora had been slowly stepping up the force and speed with which they sparred, and Rocket had taken a hard kick to the shoulder -- his first human war wound, he'd joked, and Peter had smiled even though he felt sick instead. He always managed to find something to do in the hold when Gamora and Rocket were practicing, even if it was just sitting on a crate listening to his walkman, and he was willing to take the guilt he felt when he watched them spar as the entry fee for the privilege of watching Rocket learn how to use his new body. 

Coltishly awkward and clumsy at first, he was learning to take advantage of the speed, height, and reach his Terran body gave him. It was amazing to watch -- the genius mind inside that skull learning how to coax his muscles into cooperation, strikes becoming smoother and more precise. He was getting better, but Gamora's hits still struck vastly more often than Rocket's did.

He'd seen the hit Rocket took this morning, wincing in sympathy then, and watched him now as he shrugged his shoulder uncomfortably under the tied-on ice pack.

"Bet you've got a hell of a bruise under there," Peter said. Sometimes he could get away with casual conversation now, if he was careful. If he stayed away from most of the obvious landmines.

"I got bruised before, ya just couldn't see it," Rocket said, and untied the cold pack, setting it down in the sink. For the last few weeks now, Rocket had been sleeping fully clothed, and Peter had stayed clothed to sleep as well. He was surprised when Rocket stripped his t-shirt off over his head and leaned into the mirror, studying the colors of the bruise that was painted over the joint of his shoulder in the shape of Gamora's boot heel. "That's so weird," he said quietly, prodding the bruise with his finger, tracing the edges with his fingertip.

Peter hadn't yet seen Rocket less than completely clothed, and he promised himself he wasn't going to look even while he was studying Rocket's back, smoothly muscled and pale, and his reflection's chest, furred with a light covering of hair. Rocket was studying his own reflection, too, and Peter thought that maybe Rocket hadn't really wanted to look at himself before now.

"I'm going to sleep," Peter said, because that was as close as he dared to get to _"Come to bed."_ It was also as close as he could get to _"I need you,"_ so he hoped that Rocket understood.

Rocket picked up his discarded t-shirt from the sink basin and shrugged his sore shoulder one more time, looking down at the shirt in his hands and seeming to come to a decision. "Fuck it, my shoulder hurts too much to put this back on," he said, and dropped the shirt back into the basin. Peter rolled over quickly, putting his back to the room and waiting for the bed to dip at the edge, letting him know that Rocket was as close as he was going to get and that Peter would at least have some peace and that mental voice that was so insistent about all things Rocket would be satisfied for a while.

The bed dipped down, and Peter felt warmth against his back, warmer than usual because it was Rocket's bare skin close behind him and oh that mental voice was _not_ going to be quiet tonight after all, it had many things to say about how close Rocket was and how he needed to touch him like he needed food and water and oxygen, and Peter firmly told it to shut the fuck up.

Rocket seemed to be coming to terms with his new self, and slowly warming to Peter again. He wasn't even sure if they would ever regain the ease of their previous friendship, now, much less become lovers and consummate the bond, but Peter would rather throw himself out the airlock than keep fucking things up with Rocket. That demanding mental voice would just have to put a sock in it until Peter had figured out some way to make up for destroying Rocket's entire life and sentencing him to spend his new shattered life saddled with Peter, now and forever.

The instinctual, primitive voice whined uncomfortably, urging Peter to roll over and take Rocket in his arms -- just take him, period -- and he firmly squashed it and promised himself, _just give it more time._

There was nothing else he could do, for the moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this chapter was difficult, because I was forced to examine what might be going on in the head of someone realizing that they have sexually assaulted a person they cared about, while believing at the time that everything was consensual. That wasn't a fun place to try to be, and I hope I didn't come off as apologizing or making excuses for Peter. He is realizing exactly what he's done, and realizing his own culpability in making the situation as fucked up as it is. Next up: a couple of fluffier chapters, because god knows these two could use it.


	6. In your arms so tight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast,_   
>  _To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak._
> 
> \-- The Mourning Bride (1697) by William Congreve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh sweet babies, look what I have for you today! A happy chapter! With actual fluff! The only trigger I have to warn for is discussion of homophobia! THERE IS A FUCKING MIRACLE HAPPENING HERE FOLKS. This chapter is filled with music from my own version of Awesome Mix Vol. 2, so you can either [click here to listen to the entire playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuGRLyisBwP_JE4ieWiovIER5q1lm4yx1), or click on the individual links in the story (links open in new tabs). Enjoy the boys being happy for fucking once!

Peter jumped and nearly dropped a very fragile piece of his helmet when Rocket pinged a small bit of scrap metal off of Peter's forehead. They were sitting across from each other at the table in the common area, Peter fixing a busted regulator coil on the left side of his helmet while Rocket was fiddling with something that glowed a sickening green and groaned with a teeth-rattling sub-sonic buzz when he turned it on. Peter had decided that the moment something funky happened, he was booking it to the other end of the ship, maybe even launching the escape pod with himself inside, soul mate bond or no. That thing was scary, and Rocket was humming approvingly over it like it was a kitten.

"Change the tape, Star Dork," Rocket said when Peter looked up at him. "This 'Pina Colada' crap doesn't make any sense, and I know you've got that other tape now."

"You want to listen to [Awesome Mix Volume 2](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuGRLyisBwP_JE4ieWiovIER5q1lm4yx1)?" Peter asked, perking up immediately. Rocket had never shown any interest in Peter's music beyond making fun of the lyrics. 

"At least it's something new, god knows how many times I've had to listen to you wailing along to the first one."

That was...almost overwhelmingly positive, for Rocket. "Awesome Mix Volume 2 it is!" Peter declared, and got up to switch out the tapes. The sound system in the re-built Milano was fantastic, and Peter played music in the common area and cockpit as often as the others would permit. ["Ain't No Mountain High Enough"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C_3eYj-pOM&list=PLuGRLyisBwP_JE4ieWiovIER5q1lm4yx1&index=1) spilled out of the speakers and into the cabin, and Peter settled down at the table again, picking up his work and concentrating on picking off all the scorched insulation before removing the coil and replacing it.

It had been two and a half months since Peter had touched the Unity of Souls stone, and Rocket seemed to be both accepting his new normality, and warming by minute degrees to Peter's enforced presence in his new normality. This was as companionable as he and Rocket ever seemed to get -- both concentrating on something else, occupying the same room and managing to be friendly enough that it was easy to forget anything had changed. It was nice. Nights were still spent sleeping in the same bed, but both of them wore sleep pants now, rather than sleeping fully dressed. They always started the night with Rocket a decorous distance from Peter's back and his hand resting on Peter's waist, but they invariably woke up with Rocket plastered against Peter's back, their arms and legs interwoven, Rocket's morning wood pressed against Peter's ass and Peter himself very glad to be the little spoon in this situation. Rocket would disengage himself with an irritated grunt, Peter would wait for him to leave for the bathroom before turning over and getting up, and things would go on as if this didn't happen every morning.

As the tape unreeled, Peter hummed along with [the Doobie Brothers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJe1iUuAW4M&index=2&list=PLuGRLyisBwP_JE4ieWiovIER5q1lm4yx1), sang softly under his breath to ["The Joker"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzSC2__LXk4&list=PLuGRLyisBwP_JE4ieWiovIER5q1lm4yx1&index=3) (because he liked to think of himself as a space cowboy), but he didn't notice what Rocket was doing until the heavy drums of ["I Love Rock N' Roll"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFHg0uRAyVs&index=4&list=PLuGRLyisBwP_JE4ieWiovIER5q1lm4yx1) started up: Rocket was tapping his foot to the beat. Peter could feel the vibration through the floor, and he was doing a pretty decent job of following the rhythm, too.

Peter had discovered when he was much younger that Terran humans differed from the rest of the galaxy in one singular way: they possessed a natural mental metronome. What came naturally to Terrans required intensive mental effort for everyone else -- other humanoid species could learn to play music and to dance, but typically only with many years of specialized training. Peter had supposed that explained why no one else he'd ever met had cared about music as much as he did, and why dancing was almost universally not even a Thing. Of the non-Terrans on board, Gamora could come closest to replicating a beat, but only because she looked for the next note the way she looked for an opening in her adversary's defenses. It was intense and a little bit frightening, and didn't really lend itself to relaxed, fluid dancing. 

And now Rocket was Terran. Peter wondered if offering to teach Rocket how to dance would be a killing offense, or just get him sneered at. It seemed like it could be a safe enough topic, and Rocket had already reacted wildly positively -- again, for Rocket -- by requesting a specific tape.

"You like the beat of this one?" Peter asked, setting his helmet down.

"Huh?" Rocket said, glancing up from the horrible glowing thing he was practically cooing over like it was his own child. His foot kept bouncing on the floor.

"This song, you're, uh, tapping your foot to the beat."

"No, I'm --" Rocket stopped and cocked his head, and his foot faltered in its steady tempo. "Son of a bitch."

"It's cool, though -- right? You don't have to think about it, it just happens."

"Yeah," Rocket said, looking pensive as he allowed his foot to start tapping again. "It is kinda cool."

"Dancing is even cooler," Peter said, hoping Rocket couldn't tell how nervous he suddenly was, like he was ten years old again and asking Patsy McDonald to dance at the sock hop during P.E., even though he'd really wanted to ask Joey Gutierrez instead. However, he'd known that if he copped a shiner for simply trying to stop the other boys from killing frogs, asking another boy to dance would be a death sentence. Now he looked up at Rocket, waiting to see if he would explode with anger or simply sneer.

"I guess it must be, the way ya fuckin' go on about it," Rocket said after a while, now nodding his head to the beat a little. Peter hid his smile, because for Rocket, everything he'd been saying and doing spoke of actual, genuine enthusiasm. In fact, Peter was 88% sure that Rocket was really enjoying the music and was absolutely _dying_ to try dancing, but would shoot Peter in the face before bringing it up on his own. It was the other 12% that might get him murdered by his own soul mate, but what was life without risk? 

"Wanna try it?" Peter said, inwardly flinching. Here was where it might all go straight to shit. He sat lightly in his seat, ready to run if necessary. Rocket had stopped biting as much when he was pissed off, saying it wasn't as satisfying with blunt teeth, but Gamora had taught him a nicely solid right hook that struck fear into Peter's heart when he pictured it looping toward his own face.

"You asking me to dance?" Rocket asked, and his eyes were firmly on his hands, still bopping his head subtly to the song. Right on the beat, too.

"Yeah," Peter said nervously.

Rocket looked up, targeting Peter with those icy-pale blue eyes, and then craned his head to check the galley area and cockpit stairs. Satisfied that they were alone for the time being, he sighed as if he was agreeing to some distasteful but necessary duty, like taking out the garbage or cleaning up dog poop. "Fine. Okay."

"Really?" Peter couldn't stop himself from asking in a shocked tone.

"Don't make this weird, Quill."

"Okay, okay," Peter said, laughing, and stood up so that he could move over to the clear space of floor afforded by the roomier layout of the rebuilt ship. He waited for Rocket to join him, feeling anxious and so very very uncool. _Please, let me not fuck this up,_ he prayed silently. "I Love Rock N' Roll" was just ending, but an even better song for dancing was just about to start. The pounding drums of ["Hold Tight"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3ncYBuYkFk&list=PLuGRLyisBwP_JE4ieWiovIER5q1lm4yx1&index=5) filled the air, and Peter bounced on his toes to the driving beat as Rocket stopped a few feet away from him.

"So, how do I do this shit?" Rocket asked, eyeing Peter's bouncing and wiggling -- not even really dancing yet, just moving organically to the beat -- skeptically.

"You just kinda...I dunno, let stuff happen." Peter started dancing when the guitars cut in, and Rocket's eyes widened. Peter loved this song, loved the bounciness and brightness of mid-sixties pop, so he let his shoulders loosen up and slide from side to side, in counterpoint to his hips. He was trying to be cool, cooler than he'd ever been in his entire life, but the song wasn't going to let him get away with being suave and aloof, if he was really gonna show Rocket how it was done. There was no way to be cool, when a song like this was playing, with such a demanding, happy, infectious beat, so Peter gave in to his inner Dancing Queen and cut loose, getting his arms into it, snapping his fingers and spinning in place. When he turned back around to Rocket, he was still watching him skeptically, but the calculating, dissecting light in his eyes that Peter always saw when Rocket was watching Gamora demonstrate one of her approximately ten million ways to kill someone with your bare hands was there, too.

"You givin' dancing instructions or your life philosophy?" Rocket asked, but he was starting to bounce on his toes a little bit.

"Both," Peter said, and watched with surprised awe as Rocket just kinda let stuff happen and awkwardly copied Peter's dance moves. It was mildly ridiculous, and completely endearing, and weirdly hot, all at the same time. Rocket was still watching Peter's every move, that intense look still in his eyes, but he was quickly catching on, much more quickly than he was catching on to Gamora's lessons. The guitar solo kicked in, and Peter went for it, throwing in some Pete Townshend air-guitar windmilling and a little Chuck Berry duckwalking that almost dropped him on his ass, moves which Rocket wisely did not imitate. Rocket was dancing along with him smoothly and fluidly now, and he was smiling.

The smile almost dropped Peter on his ass, too, because it was the first true smile of happiness that he had ever seen on Rocket's face, whether it was his animal form or his Terran one. It lit up his entire face, took him from being merely gorgeous (because if nothing else, the Unity stone had done absolutely _outstanding_ work when it came to making Rocket's human form pleasing to Peter's eyes) to someone that was so beautiful to Peter that he had to look away. His eyes slid right back every time he tried, because that smile was really something else -- sunny and bright and joyful. The song surged into the home stretch, drums pounding, and Rocket had apparently discovered head-banging all on his own, because he was bouncing forcefully in place, whipping his head to the beat, grinning so gleefully and so truly that Peter actually lost the beat himself.

He was still stumblingly trying to find it again, too dazzled by Rocket's grin to concentrate, when the song ended and momentary silence filled the room. Rocket stopped dancing, still grinning, and said, "Okay, that was fun. What's next?"

Peter realized, as the first notes of [the next song began to play](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmo36gnUCWE&list=PLuGRLyisBwP_JE4ieWiovIER5q1lm4yx1&index=6), that he might be in trouble here. That "ten year old boy at a school dance" feeling was sweeping over him again, and he thought to himself, _my life is an 80's teen movie cliche._ He didn't know whether he should be pissed that his mother had put this song on the tape, or eternally grateful. "I can't fight this feeling any longer," began the lyrics, "but yet I'm still afraid to let it flow." _My life is ridiculous,_ Peter thought.

"It's a slow song," Peter said, feeling as if he was suddenly all awkward limbs, and not sure what to do with his hands or his eyes or his whole fucking face, for that matter.

"Okay, how do you dance to it?" Rocket asked, and Peter thought that the next few minutes might be totally awesome, or very physically painful.

"You, uh, put your arms around each other and kind of, like, sway in place," Peter said, and Rocket narrowed his eyes at him dubiously.

"Don't you people make any music that isn't about getting all up on somebody?" Rocket asked, and Peter's gut twisted.

"Yeah," he said miserably, "But only because classical music doesn't have lyrics. And only old rich people listen to it. I don't even think they like it, they just pretend to because it's fancy."

"Terrans are fucking weird," Rocket said, but he was drifting closer to Peter. Now he was close enough that Peter's chest would touch his if they both took a deep breath.

"You don't have to dance with me to this, I can fast-forward to the next song," Peter said, wanting to offer him an out, wanting to smooth over how painfully, precisely accurate the fucking lyrics of this fucking corny, saccharine-sweet song were. It was skin-crawlingly awkward.

"Didn't say that, dumbass. I said you were fucking weird. Now are you gonna show me how to do this or not?" His shoulders were squared and his chin was thrust out, as if he was picking a fight rather than telling Peter he wanted to slow dance to REO Speedwagon with him.

Peter blinked in confusion, but obediently put one arm around Rocket's waist and picked up one of his hands, holding it loosely in case Rocket decided he wasn't into this after all. "Uh, you put your hand on my shoulder, or my waist, or whatever."

Rocket complied, putting his hand at Peter's waist, and stood there expectantly, looking into Peter's eyes for the longest stretch of time without glancing away that Peter could remember since touching the Unity of Souls stone. "Well, is this it?" he asked, and only knowing him for so long let Peter hear the nerves in his voice. The soul-bond in Peter's mind was purring happily now, because this was good. Not best, best would be Rocket and Peter standing just this way, but naked, skin to skin, and Peter steered his thoughts away from _those_ kind of suggestions in a hurry. He really was ten years old again, his body so delighted with its newfound talent for erections that it showed off all the time. _No, no, no, god, this is awful,_ Peter thought hysterically. He held his excitement in check by sheer force of will, promising himself he could have some alone time later, even if it meant Rocket was camped out on the other side of a closed bathroom door.

 _Jesus, say something, you idiot, oh my god this is terrible._ "Oh, no, you move to the music, like this," Peter said, and swayed from side to side, his gentle clasp of Rocket's hand and waist guiding him to move in time with Peter. Their chests were touching now, close enough that Rocket's feet were nested inside Peter's wider stance. Peter prayed fervently: _please god, please do not let me get a boner right now because I will die of shame before he can kill me, please do not let my life be that kind of place, amen._

The song moved into the first chorus as they began settle into the movement, getting past the initial strangeness of figuring out how to move in concert with each other. Unfortunately, that meant that they weren't talking now, too busy concentrating on not tripping each other or falling out of time, and the lyrics were dominating the room. Horribly appropriate and cheesily romantic lyrics. He couldn't bring himself to look at Rocket, sure that his own face was a bizarre mixture of hideous embarrassment and obviously besotted love. With his face turned a little away from Rocket, it felt natural for Rocket to lean in closer and put his head on Peter's shoulder -- Peter wasn't sure what had made him do it, and he was equal parts thrilled and terrified, but Rocket's ramrod tense muscles relaxed a little, and he dared to put his cheek against Rocket's hair, smelling less moss and green and more cordite and smoke, along with --? Yes, Peter's own shampoo. The idea that Rocket used his shampoo was suddenly intimate enough to make him shiver pleasantly. _Thinking stuff like that is going to get me killed,_ Peter thought, because the idea of Rocket using his shampoo turned into Rocket in the shower and Peter regretfully squashed that thought because he didn't want to die.

"How come all this stuff is men singin' to women, or vice versa?" Rocket said against his shoulder as the song began to fade to a close. The next song started, and Peter mourned a little, because he knew that to change the song would break the spell. He was right, because Rocket lifted his head from Peter's shoulder and stepped back out of his arms, blinking at him as if he was just waking up. Peter dropped his arms and let him go, following when Rocket sat back down at his place at the table and retaking his own seat. ["Maggie May"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY5eTP6fCmA&index=7&list=PLuGRLyisBwP_JE4ieWiovIER5q1lm4yx1) played on in the background.

"Because Terrans think it's only supposed to be men with women, nothing else allowed," Peter said, fiddling with the scraps of scorched insulation scattered around his work area. He didn't dare try to continue working on the helmet yet, he didn't have enough blood running to his brain now that he was safely at the table and his lower half was hidden from Rocket.

"What, like it's illegal?" Rocket scoffed. He had picked up his current project again and was poking at it with a screwdriver in a casual way that made Peter's skin crawl a little bit.

"It was in a lot of places, last I knew. People were burning down houses and making death threats because of a disease they thought only gay people carried." At Rocket's questioning glance, he clarified, "Gay is what Terrans call it when you only like people who are the same sex as you."

"That's fucked up," Rocket said, putting the glowing death-toy down and staring at Peter. "So what are you?"

"Uh, bisexual? I like both, I mean. I left Earth before I ever really learned much about all that stuff. Out here it didn't seem to matter as much, you know? It's one of the reasons I don't really care too much about going back -- I'd be a freak at home."

Something about Rocket's face softened at the same time that his brows drew together in a frown. On anyone else, Peter would have said it was a fond look, tinged with concern and protectiveness for the stupid, wonderful person the wearer of the look was fond of. Peter wasn't always sure that Rocket's face knew what it was doing -- his expressions and his words and actions rarely matched, and Peter didn't know if that was because Rocket wasn't really that great at operating a human body yet, or if it was just Rocket being Rocket. Then he smiled a little -- not the blinding, sunny smile that had stolen Peter's breath away, but a kind one, quirked up at one corner as if Rocket was ruefully aware that he was treading into actual niceness but wasn't going to stop himself just yet.

"You're still a freak out here, but you're _our_ freak," he said, and then picked up his death-dealing monstrosity again as if to say, _there, that's enough of that emotional shit._

"Thanks," Peter said, and he felt as if his translator implant was on the fritz. In those ten words, Peter found he could hear _my_ , instead of _our_. He rushed away from the table, because he had an appointment to have a little come-to-jesus meeting with his very happy dick, and thinking of Rocket claiming Peter as his was pushing up the scheduling of that meeting in a very urgent way. _Privacy now,_ he thought, _that would be a good thing._

"Where's the fuckin' fire?" Rocket called after him.

"Bathroom. Gotta go. Stay here," Peter said, face scarlet red with the scant remainders of the blood that was not otherwise occupied with making his life a miserable fucking place of teenager-esque humiliation and chafing.

"Jeez, Quill, you have many, many problems," Rocket said wonderingly, as Peter rushed into the stairwell to the crew cabins and nearly went down on his ass before catching his balance. "You got twenty minutes to work out your problem of the moment, then I'm comin' to find you before I start feelin' like shit," Rocket yelled down the stairs.

"Okay, gotcha! Twenty minutes!" Peter shouted with hysterical fake cheer, and gratefully slammed the door to his ( _and Rocket's, don't forget,_ his brain whispered at him, _he sleeps here with you_ ) cabin instead of the communal bathroom, because jesus christ forbid Gamora walk in on him wanking, she'd kill him by sheer disgusted reflex -- turning the lock and yanking his pants down in as few movements as possible. Twenty minutes? He would need less than three, and forty-five seconds of that was simple logistics of pants and dick and dear-god-lock-the-door-before-he-comes-looking. His gaze landed on the bed as he took himself in hand and started to stroke, and some part of his brain -- he had no idea whether it was the soul bond or all him, but he liked the way it thought -- showed him a crystal clear mental image of he and Rocket fucking with sweaty abandon on the bed, Rocket lying on his back under Peter and clutching at Peter's shoulders with clawed fingers as he came all over Peter's belly between them. Peter groaned out loud and it was all over, he came while remembering the smell of Rocket's hair, his shampoo in Rocket's hair, and the feel of his arms around him, as if everything was right, even if horribly awkward.

He cleaned himself up quickly, wanting to be back up in the common area before Rocket decided to hunt him down. The last thing he wanted was a fucking discussion about himself and his dick and the behavior of both. He had made sure, since the night that Rocket had first come to him with the demand of new sleeping arrangements like he was negotiating for a hostage, that he had not shown Rocket any indication that he still wanted to touch him or be sexual with him. The dancing today had been the first hint of anything like that, and Rocket didn't seem to be reacting too badly to it.

Maybe Rocket was starting to thaw toward him? Peter didn't actually believe he deserved anything of the kind, but he was pathetically grateful for it, all the same. As he finished cleaning up, he decided maybe it was time for something he'd been holding back on giving to Rocket for a while. He'd had the idea a while back, but now that he saw how positively Rocket had responded to Peter's music and dancing today, maybe he was ready now. He needed one thing to complete it -- he tried not to think of it as an engagement gift, but he couldn't help it, if Rocket understood what Peter was giving him, he would know how Peter felt -- and that would require a trip to a planet that had enough interplanetary traffic to support curio stores. It would probably also require more money than Peter currently had, so he decided to check with the others about looking for a new quasi-legal and lucrative side job. He'd come up with something, he assured himself, and set off up the stairs to the common area, and Rocket, hearing his music still playing up there and Rocket tapping his foot along to the beat again.

Maybe things would be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think that the end chapter notes for Chapter Six is an appropriate place to confess how I'm doing all this. I don't have a beta. I don't even use a text editor that has spell check. I format immediately after I finish writing. I post immediately after formatting. I'm almost always incredibly stoned when I'm writing. I'm a terrible person. 
> 
> As for the music in Awesome Mix Vol. 2, my choices are informed by growing up in roughly the same time period as Peter -- I'm about 5 or 6 years older than he is. The idea of a P.E. sock hop is also from my 80s childhood. Fifties stuff was in, mostly due to Grease, and we regularly had sock hops at the end of the semester when I was in elementary school. Imagine a gym full of awkward ten year olds in Fifties poodle skirts and rolled dungarees, trying to dance dirty to "Like A Virgin" when the chaperones walked away from the record player for long enough for one of us to slap that filth onto the turntable. It was wonderful and horrible, and I only wish the experience of excruciatingly awkward slow dancing to "Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore" circa 1984 was entirely fictional for yours truly. I still get second-hand embarrassment chills for past me.
> 
> There, I feel better with that off my chest. Next up -- maybe some teeth-rotting fluff, maybe some cute boys making out, maybe some good old fashioned smut, maybe some cliche-but-satisfying beloved-in-peril? I'm not telling. Maybe all four, if Rocket cooperates when I'm writing the next chapter from his POV.


	7. You let me know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrenaline sharpens your senses, helps you to see danger more quickly. Sometimes that clarity of focus makes you see things that were already there, unnoticed and untouched.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wheeee! More fluff! I don't know what's happening to me, it's so weird. There are no warnings at all for this chapter, which is a personal record.

Things were not okay. There were many ways in which things were deeply not okay, but the biggest one, aside from the obvious, was that Peter was freaking out on the other side of the door.

The obvious one, the plex in the porthole cracking in spiderwebs, was important, yes, but Peter was losing his shit on the side of the door with the door control that _wasn't_ absolutely fried. Rocket hadn't even told him yet that he could hear the clear composite of the observation window set into the wall of the station crackling like a hearty campfire. It could go at any moment, or it could hold for hours; there was no real way to tell.

Gamora, Groot, and Drax were at the other end of the station, last Rocket had known, and he had heard the clang of blast doors dropping when a wild shot first cracked the porthole window -- in case of hull breach, the station's systems were programmed to isolate the area to minimize atmosphere loss. There would be ten inches of alloy plating between anyone who might have the skills to hack the damaged door lock -- also winged by a wild shot, and wasn't that how Rocket's luck usually ran? -- and the area he and Peter were in. Of course, Rocket himself had the skills to make it a trivial thing; he was also on the wrong side of the door. Peter didn't have the skill to open the lock himself, unaided. For all he liked to think of himself as a master thief, he had never bothered to acquire the practical knowledge to hack security systems; instead he relied on crackers and signal jammers, specialized gadgets that were the brute-force option for opening locks. 

They'd come to Knowhere to _shop_ , of all things. Peter had gotten it into his head that they should pull another job of some kind because he had some kind of Terran crap he wanted. The heist had come off fine, and Rocket was pleased with himself that he'd been no more of a liability as a human than he'd been before. Peter had been really fucking shifty about the whole shopping thing once they got here, and managed to keep Rocket from seeing whatever it was he'd been buying, even though Rocket was with him the entire time, on an invisible leash that they had figured out amounted to about fifty feet before both of them started to feel sick. He'd been so crafty about it that he'd come up with all kinds of logical-sounding reasons why they all had to split up, like he didn't want any of them to see what he was up to and only took Rocket with him because he had to. Whatever it was, Peter had succeeded in hiding it. _Fucking thief, through and through,_ Rocket thought. _Making him a Guardian doesn't make him not a thief._

Rocket suspected that there had been some sleight of hand going on to distract him from the thing Peter had dragged them all the way out here for, and he didn't like it. He'd been trying to decide if his hands had regained enough of their former dexterity to try pickpocketing the pickpocket's bag and find out what the fuck it was Peter was being so shady about when a blue guy stepped out of an alley with a few of his ugly blue friends and said some bombastic, theatrical crap about how people still believed in Ronan's ideals and everything had gone to shit. Now Rocket was here, in a room on the exterior hull of a rickety bizarro-land space station with a failing porthole window, a couple of dead guys who had chased Rocket in here (they hadn't been dead when they came in, but they sure were now) and Peter on the side of the door with the only control that was still mostly in one piece. Panicking.

"Can't I just shoot it?" Peter was asking.

"No, why would that do anything different on that side than it did on this side? That's why I'm in here in the first place!"

"I can't get the door control to respond, it's locked up. I can't get it to open --" Peter was frantic now. "I can't do this kind of stuff, that's you, you're the one who ought to be out here because I can't hack door locks, I just use crackers, I can't --"

"Yeah, well, open the door and we can trade places," Rocket said, one eye on the window, half of his concentration there and calculating the possible pressure differential between the atmosphere left in the room and the vacuum outside, and the rest concerned with what the fuck was going on with Peter out there. At the current rate of amto loss, he might have half an hour or so of breathable oxygen before carbon dioxide accumulation started to make him loopy. Explosive depressurization was unlikely, what would kill him would be much less flashy -- plain old asphyxiation. And the cracks were spreading, so the rate of oxygen and pressure loss was speeding up. And at the current rate that Peter was descending into utter, black panic on the side of the door that Rocket would really like to be on, he would never be calm enough to do anything about getting Rocket out of here in time.

Behind Rocket, the window groaned and chittered, cracks spreading slowly across the width. He tried to convince himself that Peter was freaking out because of the soul bond thing fucking with him, that stupid new instinct they both possessed about the other telling him that he had to get to his mate, or something like that. That wasn't it, not entirely; he'd been fooling himself for a while, he knew. It was easier to believe that Peter was pursuing him only because of the bond. It was easier to resist, if he believed that it was just the bond. It was impossible to believe that Peter might care for reasons that had nothing to do with touching the Unity of Souls stone, but seeing how nervous and flustered Peter had been when he offered to teach him to dance, it had hit him that he had never seen Peter Quill that nervous and self-conscious before.

This was a guy who didn't hesitate to try to save the galaxy with possibly the most asinine stunt Rocket had ever seen. "Dance off, bro -- me and you." Yes, let's face down the genocidal asshole with the weapon of ultimate destruction by confusing the fuck out of him. _Of course_ it had worked, _of course_ it had, because it was _Peter Jason Quill_. Fucking _Star-Lord_. Nothing flustered him, he was always cool and confident in a dorky way that somehow wrapped all the way around to cool again. But when he had asked Rocket to dance with him, he was genuinely nervous.

Rocket realized that he was the cause of that -- he was the thing that Peter was so nervous about. Because he wanted Rocket to return his feelings. It was actually kind of exciting, to be someone that made Peter Quill stutter and blush and act so fucking weird sometimes -- well, even weirder than usual. (Like running away from the table after they sat down, what the fuck was that about?)

When they had danced to the second song, the one with lyrics that seemed to make Peter squirm in an agony of awkwardness, he'd felt the bond between them somehow shining with approval. This was right. He'd put his head against Peter's shoulder, running on that simple, demanding instinct, and he had felt Peter relax at the same moment that his own tenseness had left him. It had started to sink in for Rocket that Peter might be falling in love with him, then. He wasn't ready to do anything about it yet, or he hadn't been until now. He hadn't been sure, of anything -- how Peter felt, how he felt himself. But hearing the way Peter was losing it over the comm, the cracking, terrified tone in his voice -- he knew now. The only other time he'd lost his shit in front of Rocket this badly was when that guard had taken his beloved walkman at the Kyln -- as if Rocket was as important to him now as his music was. No one had ever had that much concern for him or anything that might happen to him, ever. The way Peter sounded right now was the sound of someone fearing that they were about to lose the person they loved.

And Rocket also knew, feeling his own response to that fear, that he could love Peter in return. He'd thought he loved him before, and then after the soul bond, was determined to resist it out of sheer, bloody-minded obstinance -- he wouldn't be who he was, if he gave in to something that tried to control him. Even if it was Peter. But listening to Peter now, his heartbreaking terror out there -- Rocket knew he was absolutely fucked, because there was no part of him that wasn't suddenly ready to tear down universes with his bare hands if it meant that Peter would stop being afraid. He would do anything for him, die for him, kill anyone, whatever it took, and that was almost as terrifying as the fairly-certain prospect of slowly suffocating in here while Peter listened to him die over the comm.

The window cracked again, audibly louder, and Rocket knew he was running out of time.

"Quill, you're gonna have to --"

"I'm trying, man, I just don't know what to do!" Peter cried out in frustration. 

"Just listen to me," Rocket began, intending to walk Peter through cracking the lock from his side of the door, and Peter was babbling wildly over the comm at him that he couldn't do it, and Rocket was desperate enough to cut through the panic and get him to listen that he said, "Peter."

" _What?_ " Peter replied, and Rocket knew he didn't mean, "Yes, what do you want to say?", he meant "What did you just call me?" Rocket had only ever referred to him as Peter inside his own head. Out loud, it was always Quill.

"Peter," Rocket said again, carefully, gently, trying to feel his way to keeping Peter calm. "You're gonna _have_ to crack the door lock, because the window's gonna go any time now in here. I can talk you through it, but you gotta stay calm. Can you do that for me?" Rocket felt strange, being so serene and quiet and nice, speaking in possibly the sweetest and most reasonable tone of voice he had ever used in his life. He hoped it would work, because the window was looking strangely cloudy, as if the cracks were so small and close together that it was rendering it opaque.

"You don't ever call me that," Peter said in a small voice, and Rocket realized that his calm and reasonable tone, and his calling Peter by his first name, had just frightened him much more than if Rocket had been panicking as much on his side of the door as Peter was on his. "Can you not right now? It's freaking me out. I mean, I'd really like for you to, later, but right now it's really, _really_ scary for some reason."

"Okay, fine. But you need to calm down and listen to me, okay? I'll go through it step by step."

"I can't! You're the one who knows this stuff, not me, I can't do the stuff you do. Why don't you have a helmet like mine? That's what I should have gotten you today, you're gonna die in there and it'll be my fault because I can't open the fucking lock! You're the smart one, this is you, not me, I can't do it." Peter sounded terrified and defeated and Rocket had never felt such horrible concern for someone else in his life. Not even for himself. He wanted Peter to stop sounding that way, even more than he wanted out of this room. 

"Yes you can, you're dumber than me but so is everybody else, right? Just listen to what I tell you to do, and I can get out of here and we can hug for an hour or whatever, okay?"

"Now I _know_ you think you're gonna die," Peter said with a hysterical edge of laughter in his voice. "You're offering to hug me."

"It's kind of a limited time offer. I gotta get out of here, first, then you can hug me all you want. I'll even dance with you again. Take the outside panel off and tell me what you see."

"You're bribing me with physical affection. I could get used to that." He heard a metallic clunk over the comm, and Peter choked out another little hysterical laugh and said, "It's a bunch of fucking wires, jesus. I can't do this, Rocket."

"Yes, you can. I'll go through it step by step." Behind him, the glass was making a noise like marbles rolling over each other, squeaking and chattering.

"I'm gonna fuck it up," Peter said, but when Rocket began instructing him on which wires to cross and which to sever, he did what he was told. Peter being Peter, he babbled in between Rocket's instructions, and Rocket wished he would shut up and concentrate, but trying to stop Peter when something on his mind wanted to come out through his mouth was pointless. He'd known that even before the soul bond thing.

"I got you something today, well, two somethings, one thing I already had, but I bought one thing today," Peter said. "I know you knew, I mean, I tried to keep you from seeing but even if you did see can you pretend to be surprised when I give it to you? 'Cause it's kind of important to me. It's -- I hope you like it." Peter sounded almost as worried over whether Rocket would like the gift as he was over getting the door open. "It's important to me like you're important to me. So, like, a lot."

"You dragged us all the way out here for something for me?" Rocket realized that his current situation was not the best setting for being absurdly touched, but he was, simply because no one had ever given him anything at all before, ever, and tried to keep his mind on the important things, like his approaching death. He didn't think he had it in him, what with the approaching death business, to even address the other thing Peter had said. About Rocket being important to him. Because there was only so much terror even Rocket could stand at one time, and that idea was terrible and wonderful and just too big to deal with right now.

"Yeah, I had this idea and I thought you might like it -- is this black wire the one I need?"

"Yeah, splice it with the yellow-and-red striped one, it should pop the lock." He supposed that letting Peter babble had been the right thing after all. He wondered if he would ever figure him out. He supposed if they could get the door open, he would have plenty of time to try. For the first time, he didn't hate the idea. Behind him, the window began to sing with a weirdly strained musical note. Rocket glanced back over his shoulder and saw a chunk of window _shimmying_ , as if it was a puzzle piece trying to wiggle itself out of place. "Peter --"

"There," Peter said triumphantly as the door lock panel on both sides spit sparks, and then he was reaching through the widening gap and dragging Rocket through it. Rocket had barely cleared the door into the corridor, popping through like a cork, when the sustained musical singing of the porthole glass became a shrill death-howl and the atmosphere inside the room was sucked out into vacuum. The door slid shut behind them, blast shield falling into place, and the whistling scream from inside the room cut off instantly.

Rocket found himself in the corridor with Peter hugging him so tightly that his toes were barely brushing the floor. Peter had his face buried in Rocket's hair and was talking, low and fast, like he wasn't aware he was even speaking out loud. He was saying he'd been so scared, that he was sorry, that he didn't want to lose him before he made up for being such a fuckup, before he'd even told him he loved him. The last statement made Rocket struggle his way free enough to be able to see Peter's face. He looked shell-shocked and pale and his eyes were a little unfocused.

"I knew that already, idiot. I'm right here, I'm fine, and...me too, okay?" Rocket said, and Peter gaped at him, mouth dropping open. His eyes lost that hazy, unfocused look, and he closed his mouth with a snap, staring down at Rocket with an unreadable expression that suddenly broke into a relieved, fond smile.

"How come I don't even care about how much of an asshole you are?" Peter said, shaking his head. 

"Because you love me?" Rocket said, feeling his way around the idea. "I dunno, Quill, I thought you were supposed to be the one teaching me all these life lessons and shit by being my fucking soul mate, why are you askin' me?"

"So is that what we're doing now? We're soul mates?"

"Yeah," Rocket said, and kissed him. He had to laugh a little, in the back of his mind, because Peter was so surprised to be kissed that Rocket had the chance to slip him some tongue before he was even kissing Rocket back. When Peter did catch up, and got on board with it, Rocket decided he could be a fan of this kissing stuff. They were still kissing when the blast doors at either end of the corridor lifted, and the rest of the crew charged into the hallway -- Peter had contacted them when he and Rocket had first run into Ronan's ex-goons, and they'd found Peter's last known position blocked by the lockdown. The blast doors had blocked comm transmissions, as well, so they had no way of knowing if Peter and Rocket were injured or even alive at all.

Rocket could hear Gamora and Drax muttering at each other a few feet away as he and Peter kept on doing what they were doing. The soul bond was pretty happy about this state of affairs -- Rocket had not felt this good, physically or mentally, since he had been transformed. He felt at peace. It irked him a little, because it felt like coercion, but it wasn't Peter's doing, at least not on purpose. He decided he could live with it. The soul bond was also very interested in other things that Peter and Rocket could be doing, and Rocket was considering asking Gamora and Drax to leave the corridor and make sure no one else came by, because some of the fantasies he'd had when he first became human that had horrified him so much then sounded like excellent ideas now.

"I am Groot?" Groot said with a worried, questioning lilt to his grinding rumble of a voice, and that made Rocket pull back from Peter so that he could answer him -- Groot sounded worried, and it made Rocket feel suddenly guilty.

"Nah, big guy, we're fine. Just happy to see each other," Rocket said, regretfully disengaging himself from Peter's arms. It was pretty much the last thing he ever wanted to do, but if he didn't do it, he and Peter would probably shame themselves forever in front of people they had to see all the goddamn time.

"What happened?" Gamora asked, looking as if her patience with assholes who scared her into thinking they were dead and then ignored her to make out with each other for five minutes was wearing exceedingly thin.

"We had a problem, and we fixed it," Peter said, looking at Rocket rather than Gamora.

Gamora uttered a strangled, frustrated noise, and spun on her heel to stalk back to the Milano. Deciding that it was in his and Peter's best interest to follow her and get back to the ship as soon as possible, Rocket grabbed Peter's hand and tugged him along, passing Drax and Groot who still stood at the end of the corridor. Drax was looking pleased, and Rocket hoped he would stuff a sock in the congratulations shit because there was only so much open emotion from other people he could be expected to tolerate in one sitting. He had already expressed more honest, genuine affection in one day than he'd displayed in his entire life. He was going to try, try as hard as he could -- he hadn't forgotten what it felt like to want to tear down existence to make Peter happy, because the depth and breadth of that impulse had been staggering -- but he knew it was going to be difficult, giving Peter what he needed from him. He felt as if all the emotion he would ever feel for the rest of his life would have to be reserved for Peter and Peter alone, just to keep up.

Drax said nothing, however, and simply followed them and Groot out into the station's market and back toward the ship.

As they walked back toward the skydocks, Rocket could see Gamora forging ahead of them, back ramrod stiff. He kept ahold of Peter's hand, because why not -- now that he had admitted that he was fucked up in the head for Peter Quill, why should he care if someone saw him holding his hand? He knew it made Peter happy. He saw the rest of his life stretching ahead of him, a constant struggle to do things that were alien to him, all to make Peter happy, and he didn't begrudge it at all.

"Hey, when we get back to the ship, I want to, uh -- give you the present I have for you," Peter said, swinging their clasped hands between them like a fidgety child.

"Okay," Rocket said, bemused by the idea that someone had something for him that he wasn't in the least concerned about -- not a pointed gun or a fist or a warrant for his arrest he'd forgotten was still out, but a gift. "We gotta talk a little bit, before we get back to the ship, though."

"Okay, this isn't the 'I'm breaking up with you talk', right? Because we've only been together for like fifteen minutes and that would be a new record, even for me," Peter said nervously.

"No, this is the talk where I say I'm willing to do physical stuff with you, but not -- all at once. Give me a chance to get used to it before you just go at me, okay? And if I say we're done for right now, we're done, and you don't bitch about it," Rocket said, watching Peter out of the corner of his eye.

After a lot of thought, he figured that Peter's behavior, the night after he'd stolen the stone, hadn't really been Peter. He understood all too well how strident the call of the bond had been, and Peter hadn't stopped to figure out how much was them and how much was the soul bond screaming to be fulfilled. He didn't think Peter would force him or hurt him, now, but he needed to be sure.

"Of course," Peter said, on a guilty swallow. Rocket knew he felt ashamed of himself, and he knew that it was probably a sign of how far gone he was for Peter that the guilt in Peter's voice hurt to hear at the same time that it reassured him that Peter wouldn't do such a thing again. "Whatever you want."

"Okay," Rocket said, satisfied. Ahead of them, Gamora was unsealing the Milano's main airlock and shooting them an accusatory glance over her shoulder as she stepped inside. He knew he would be on her shit list for a while, at least until she realized that he and Peter weren't adversaries anymore. He hoped she'd still spar with him, even if he wasn't intending to use his new combat skills to defend himself from Peter. _Peter will be teaching me now,_ he thought, and felt a twist of anticipatory desire go through him as he thought about being alone with Peter in just a few minutes, able to do what he wanted and figure out how he felt about it along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The information about hull breach and atmosphere loss was taken from my general knowledge of the science of space flight, and vetted by my husband, who flies imaginary internet space ships in EVE Online like it's his fuckin job. Also I did verify it with the information available at [Atomic Rockets](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/index.php), so it is accurate according to somebody other than me and my boo. On the other hand, every goddamn thing about scramblers/crackers, the blast doors, and the door lock is freely invented off the top of my head, so no accuracy there.
> 
> Coming up, we have three or four chapters of nothing but smut. Yay!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Yeah, You Turn Me On](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2284020) by [grocketinmypocket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grocketinmypocket/pseuds/grocketinmypocket)
  * [All The Good Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2331257) by [grocketinmypocket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grocketinmypocket/pseuds/grocketinmypocket)
  * [[podfic] All The Good Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2347019) by [grocketinmypocket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grocketinmypocket/pseuds/grocketinmypocket), [reena_jenkins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reena_jenkins/pseuds/reena_jenkins)




End file.
